O'day 222 rudder repair

[kveach]

Hello all,

My wife and I are the new owners of a well-kept 1987 O'day 222. Still sorting through the projects, but a top priority is the kick-up rudder. After reading about the newer solid or fiberglass options, I still decided to repair what I have, (to save money, ha! and gain a little more fiberglass experience)

There seemed to be only limited separation of the fiberglass from the foam based on hammer taps and drilling test holes. In fact, most places where it gave a dull thud I could barely see a hairline separation of glass from foam after drilling. For these I'll drill multiple holes and use the West System idea of injecting a low viscosity epoxy with a syringe then clamping to reattach the skin to the foam.

The edges showed slight cracking/delamination in the foam. For the edges, I've ground away the center part of the seam where the foam was exposed to a depth of about 1/4 inch and then chased any cracks or voids or dark spots with a Dremmel tool 'till I reached solid, clean foam. The cracks were mostly shallow and the foam was completely dry (she hadn't sailed in over a year). Then I'll use fiber-reinforced G-flex to fill the grooves and 1 or two layers of glass mat, feathered in over the leading edge to reinforce it. Give a top coat of epoxy to cover the cloth texture. Then I'll be ready to prep and paint.

My three questions are:
1) Any thoughts on my repair process?
2) What should I use to "paint" it? It will be white. The boat is trailered and will never be in the water for more than a week at a time.
3) What kind of a pull up system should I devise?

Whew! Thanks for letting me join Y'all and thanks for the help.

 

[Brian S]

I don't think you need G-Flex for this repair. Regular West System or similar epoxy will do. You might pour it in to the crack neat, or maybe with a bit of colloidal silica thickener to fill in voids around the foam. Microfiber thickening for the actual cracks is not a bad idea. I've often mixed microfibers and colloidal silica to peanut butter consistency. Colloidal silica alone can be prone to cracking. Microfibers are good for laminating, so the two together gets you a nice fill consistency along with structural stability.

If you plan to wrap fabric around the seams, then maybe you should grind off the gelcoat, as it is not very structural. Then you'll have to fill and fair. West makes a semi-structural filler material that is a purplish color. Weird stuff it is, it gets to a point where adding more doesn't seem to make the slurry any thicker. Sands off easily enough. I believe it is considered more structural than glass micro-beads. Check with West System's site.

I bet you can paint with just about anything. Old fashioned enamel will probably work fine, like even Rustoleum spray paint. Or you could go one part polyurethane.

I took a page out of Trinkka's photo albums here, and drilled a hole in the trailing edge of my rudder, then attached 3/16" line up over the back corner of the rudder headstock (it runs over the spacer, so it's reasonably friction free, and forward to an alloy clam cleat on the tiller. It does not have a good pull to yank up the foil, so I reach down to the back edge of the top of the foil head (above the molded in notch that fits a spacer rivet) and I push in there. That starts the foil coming up, and then I can yank on the up haul line to hold the blade up. I keep the boat in the slip with the foil up. I found that keeping the foil down, caused a lot of play from wave action, and I fear this is wearing my gudgeon holes, and to a lesser extent, my pintles. I wish the gudgeons had bronze or even nylon or delrin bushings, because I hate slop in my tiller. I have no desire to cut in an inspection port in the transom so that I could remove the gudgeons and replace. Or perhaps find a machinist to drill out the holes and drop in some bushings. That would be kinda nice.

I also have the downhaul line led to a very small cheek block on the tiller, and then forward along the side to an auto-releasing clam cleat, in case I'm ever in skinny water. This happened once along the shore of our generally deep lake while I was motoring. The bang of that cleat releasing gets your attention! http://www.clamcleat.com/cleats/cleat_details.asp?theid2=78

Finally, I felt that my headstock was allowing too much torsional flex. I drilled out all the aluminum rivets to separate the two pieces, painted with VHT epoxy suspension paint from an auto parts store (holding up well after 1 season) and built a solid teak spacer block to fill in the majority of the headstock. I reattached it with 1/4"-20 bolts and reused some of the spacers. I have seen others who sistered in more plates on the lower half, but I feel I have improved mine enough not to really need stiffer side plates. And solid teak was overkill! It's nice to have a friend with a jointer and thickness planer to get it just right

In case this isn't making sense, there are a few pics which might help. Here is a pic of the up haul line in position on the back of the headstock. It also shows how I would push in the top of the foil head to start raising the foil:

Note this was before the stiffening of the headstock, when it was still hollow. Maybe when the boat was new, before the rivets loosened a bit, the headstock was less twisty.

Here is a pic of the teak stiffening block in place on a side plate, showing positioning with tiller and spacers in place:

And finally a test assembly of the headstock with 1/4"-20 bolts, washers, and nylock nuts. I used 316 SS in case I ever get into salt water. This was before painting the side plate and varnishing the teak block:

Hope this helps. Oh, by the way, keep in mind that the rudder on the 192 and 222 are essentially, if not exactly, the same.

 

[kveach]

Thanks for the great detailed advice, Brian!

Your thoughts and photos are really clear. Let me just follow up with a bit more...

I'm planning to use the G-flex with the microfibers and the colloidal silica for thickening for the edges because I have some 3 year old G-flex I want to keep using up. For the holes I'll drill into the body of the rudder, I figured I better buy and use the 105 resin and the 209 extra slow hardener so the viscosity is low enough to inject into the drilled holes. Even unthickened G-flex is pretty viscous.

I was planning to grind off material about 3" back from the leading edge and deep enough to accomodate 1 or 2 layers of woven roving. (is one layer enough?) I'll make sure to get through the gelcoat. Was planning to just fill with fiber reinforced Gflex or 105 but no fairing additive. (with power sanders do I need the fairing compound?)

Simple is good. I like the uphaul rope. Did you seal the hole you drilled for the rope? I think I ought to drill it larger, fill with epoxy and then redrill a 3/8 inch hole for the rope.

For the rudder stainless steel pivot bolt and bushing, did you cement the bushing in place or is the bushing loose in an oversized hole in the blade?

I like the idea of the auto releasing jam cleat. I think I saw it in one of your or Trinkka's earlier posts. Thanks for the link.

The spacer blocks on mine are just pieces of 2x2 oak and some of the s.s. spacers at the top. I don't know about the flex yet.

And finally, it's good to know I have flexibility in the paint. I really didn't want to spend upwards of $50 for a quart of marine bottom paint. Waterproof, slick, white and durable is all I think I need.

Thanks so much for the advice and photos. I do look forward to your response on these additional questions.

Cheers,

 

[Brian S]

I have used a G-Flex repair kit to fill holes which need to be re-used. It is pre-thickened, I believe. It's some thick stuff. The reason is that G-Flex is more elastic than regular West 105 resin, so there's more give and less chance for the repair fracturing. That being said, I don't think that the G-Flex would allow too flexy a repair in a foil. Keep in mind the construction of your foil is 2 fiberglass clam shells enclosing a foam core. Depending on how separated the clam shells are, or the gap along the seam, and how much delamination from the core you have, you might not need heroic measures. You might be able to just pour the neat 105 resin into the separation cracks, and have it fill in around the foam core and fill the voids. Injecting into holes can makes the sides swell (folks have observed trying to repair deck core rot.) Your hardener choice is temperature based, of course, not viscosity. Then, you might be able to cram in the G-Flex into the separation, and have that be plenty of a repair. Also, you will clamp the crack together. I don't know if you really need to glass around the outside of the seam. If you did glass around the seam, you probably want to use 105 resin for that, for full wet-out with minimum resin use. More resin doesn't provide any additional strength to a fiber laminate, only more weight. Also, you don't want the glass fabric to float on the surface because of too much resin. If I were going to do it, I'd probably cut strips of fabric on the bias for easier drape-ability, just like bias tape in sewing. (Though I admit some rolls of fiberglass tape is easier to deal with.) You would also probably want to vacuum bag it, because tape will not sit flat on a wrap like that. It won't even stick well for a 90º with radius corner unless something is holding it down. It all depends on how bad your delimitation is. Remember, the initial construction bond of (not very sticky) polyester resin for clamshell side to clamshell side bond was good enough for 30 years... (When I rebuilt the mast step on my small boat because the plywood core was wet and rotting, I repaired with plywood again - it worked for 25 years the first time, and I knew I wouldn't be sailing her for another 25 years...)

When I drilled my hole in the trailing edge of the rudder blade, it seemed to go through solid glass laminate, no foam. It's about 1/2" in from the edge, maybe 1/3rd of the way down from the headstock? So, I just smeared some West System 105 epoxy in the hole. Putting the line through the hole and tying with an overhand knot would suffice, but what I did was make a loop, then stitch and whip the line to form the loop. It looks clean, and it's held up 2 seasons now. The clam cleat is wearing the line I used, which is a polyester utility cord, between 3/16" and 1/4" (listed at 1/4", but it's thinner) because it has a thinner parallel strand core inside the outer braid cover. When it needs replaced, I will use 3/16" New England Rope Sta-set, because it is possibly more abrasion resistant to the clam cleat. I anticipate replacement is 3 or more years in the future.

The blade pivot is a SS spacer/bushing which is free to spin inside the foil. There was no apparent wear, no reason to change that.

As for your wood spacer block, I really hope it's white oak and not red oak. Red oak has tubules that run all the way along the grain. It soaks up water like a sponge, and then rots. It should not be used anywhere on a boat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=L6t2AZubF8U If you have a good spacer block, I doubt you'll have too much flex. Despite me wanting to always GO AS FAST AS POSSIBLE, the fact is the 192 is just a great sailing little cruiser, not a tweaky go-fast racer.

 

[kveach]

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the great reply. Sorry about the delay in getting back. Was out of town at a Jimmy Buffet concert! Good thoughts about the different epoxies, caution with the injection technique, the foil-raising hole and the oak. The delamination really is minor and I should be well-armed to move beyond the grinding phase now. My first attempt at wetting out woven roving cloth with the G-flex (a separation in the glass tabs holding the ballast pad in place in a different boat) proved your point to me that it is harder to wet out the cloth with the G-flex and that was only a slightly concave surface. I'll think some more about my technique for holding the cloth in place as I wrap it around the leading edge.

Thanks again!