New Rudder

The stock Astus rudder is 37 inches. That seems to get me in trouble sailing skinny water around the Florida gulf coast. What happens in bottoming out, the rudder down-haul auto-release camcleat trips out and releases. The rudder then becomes horizontal and the tiller is nearly unmanageable and goes to weather at any speed over 1 knot.

I did have some email discussions with two other Astus 20.2 owners here in Florida who also found the stock rudder to be a bit of liability in their own style of either Florida coastal cruising or challenge racing. The consensus is that a shorter rudder will sail just fine around here, and while the boat trims well, the shorter rudder does not appear to have a negative effect on boat hadling. While the other Astus 20 boat owners have good success with two other manufacture’s products, I chose a custom roll-yer-own path.

I had my good friend, and naval architect JF at Bedard Yacht Design, www.bedardyachtdesign.com, examine the stock rudder profile and figment to the existing rudder box as mounted to my Astus 20.2 XL. He mocked up a 3-D rudder design on his computer drafting system. The design was transferred to the CnC router table to be milled from layered up cedar. The rudder plug was then sealed and strengthened with epoxy and glass, and vacuum bagged to infuse into the cedar. The rudder was then sanded and faired. In my shop, the rudder was primed and painted with Rustoleum marine paint.

Bedard Yacht Design also fabricated a replacement tiller much like the one on the River of Grass, RoG, a cat-ketch boat. The tiller and rudder was fitted to the stock rudder box. Also employed the same up-haul and down-haul lines and cleats, tiller hot stick, and Davis tiller tamer add-on. The replacement rudder system works well, and with the drop keel partially up, can effectively sail at a few knots in light breeze in 12 to 18 inches of water, or out in the Gulf at a pretty good clip. That's rewarding coastal cruising and I’m pleased with that.