J/30 Class Association Forums J/30 Forum The Boat, Sails and Equipment How Much does your Rudder Weigh?

anyone know what a J30 rudder should weigh? Mine is 1000 pounds for some reason.
thanks

I believe that if you did deep enough into the older messages in this forum that you'll find this very subject has been covered in the recent past.

Happy Hunting....

Well, 1000 lbs. is a bit excessive. I happen to have mine in the basement, so I just went down and weighed it with a reasonably accurate digital scale. Several weighings all produced 72 lbs. That included hardware with pintles. No modification to the rudder has ever been done.

Dennis, you indicated that the hardware was attached to the rudder (pintles). What about the stainless-steel tiller bracket?

BTW - just weighed my rudder and got 71 lbs. The rudder had only the pintles attached. The tiller bracket was off. The bolt/axel for the tiller bracket was also removed.

Yes Mike. Both tiller and it's SS bracket removed.

1000 lbs seems rather excessive... I wonder if it's possible for it to soak up that much water. Wonder if "ppasko" meant 100?

It would be good to get data from one more original rudder. If anyone else has stored their rudder at home for the off-season, please weigh it and share your results...

From a previous thread http://www.sailthebay.com/ubb/Forum10/HTML/000117.html the wieght seemed to be from 83-88 lbs.

I have a new rudder purchased from TPI last year and it weighs 86 lbs. with hardware (about 10 lbs. heavier that the original 1981 rudder). I think the newer ones have more solid material in the hardware attachment area which may account for the added weight.

Steve Sullivan
Temptation # 311

I thought this would be interesting for people to collect the data and see what we find. I used a very sophisticated method. I got out the bathroom scale and weighed myself, then held the old rudder that was damaged and repaired, recorded that weight and subtracted my weight. I then did the same with the new IdaSailor rudder I bought to replace the damaged rudder after my Block Island storm damage. Note the damaged rudder is usable since the repairs were done, just a little heavy. These weights are just the rudder, no mounting hardware.

73 Pounds - Original Repaired Rudder (horizontal in picture)
60 pounds - IdaSailor Rudder (upright in picture)

Post your rudder weights here if you have measured it. Class spec per para 5.6.1 is 60 pounds minimum. I doubt many people find a rudder below that weight...