J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment Rudder Weight

Does anyone have an idea of how much the rudder should weigh? Mine has a few cracks near the upper gudgen and after doing a little exploring I have discovered wet balsa core throughout the area. I am wondering if the lower part of the rudder is full of water as well. I am also looking for ideas to dry it out. As always, thanks for the help

Sounds like you may have a major job ahead of you. Take your rudder home. Drill small test samples starting in the suspect area and widening until you are confident that you are past the wet core area. You'll know the difference between wet drill shavings and dry ones. Once you have determined the extent of the damage, drill plenty of additional holes in the region of wet core. And let it sit in a dry warm area for a long time. Months if you can. Use a heat lamp to warm the rudder (but only when you are home). When you are confident that the core is dry and not delaminated from the skin, fill all the holes with epoxy. Fair and paint as normal.

If you have delamination problems (usually due to the core being wet for along time), you may find that the only fix is to strip off one side of the fiberglass skin, replace the core, and reglass the rudder. Lets hope thats not the case.

Thanks for the tips. It is looking as if there may be quite a bit of water involved. The reason I asked about the weight, is mine weighs in at 83 lbs. If I knew approximately what it should weigh it would be a pretty good indication of the amount of water involved and when a reasonable amount of water has been removed. This is a new to me boat so I don't have a great amount of history with her and also don't have a good feel for the length of time involved in some of her problems. As far as letting the rudder dry out for many months, that is no problem. Winters are long here in Alaska. The biggest problem may be getting my wife to put up with the rudder in the house for so long! Thanks again. Steve

One of our fleet members put his in the closet near the furnace for a winter to dry it out. I'll email him and see if he remembers what it weighed, both wet and dry).

For what it's worth... I purchased a new rudder from TPI last year and took it off at the end of this season. It weighs 87 lbs. with the gudgeons installed. I don't know what the gudgeons and bolts/nuts weigh (I'm not going to disassemble, sorry) but I would imagine 4 or five lbs. is about right. Weigh yours, subtract from 87 lbs. and you should have a pretty close weight of what my rudder weighs, though I'm not sure comparing a 2000 rudder with an original is an apples to apples comparison. Hope that helps.

Temptation, #311

I weighed all the hardware and came up with about 8 pounds. That puts me on the ball park of 4 pounds of water or almost 1/2 gallon. I will shoot for rudder weight of around 79 pounds as I dry it out and go from there. Thanks again for the help. Is it spring yet?

Quicksilver #344

I replaced my rudder in '98. Here are my weights:

New rudder/fittings = 85 lbs

Fittings alone = 8 lbs

wet rudder with fittings = 88 lbs

cost delivered to FL with buff colored Gelcoat was $1100 ( white was $150 less )

My rudder was split at the trailing edge after a run in with a winter stake at a nearby mooring.

I put the rudder on without hauling the boat which was a royal pain.

Good Luck

Those of you who stated weights - how did you determine the weight of your rudder?

I stood on the bathroom scale with mine!