O'Day Rudder Crack

[Adam]

I was painting the hull this weekend and noticed a crack down the forward centerline of the rudder. It was approx 18" in height and quite thin. I spread it open a bit with screwdrivers and injected fiberglass resin inside then glassed over the outside after removing the paint.Any better ideas or solutions?

 

[Brian]

Repair

What you have done should work fine. If the crack is open the you should use a filler like West System 404 to thicken it before filling. If there is a possibility of there being any moisture inside, then I would have ground open the crack and allowed it to thoroughly dry then repaired the fiberglass using standard methods. Of course that takes a long time (months of drying time if the boat is stored on the water) to repair using that method.Good luck

 

[james rohr]

sounds correct!

I'm assuming that you overlaid a layer of glass reinforcement over the crack.this is a common problem to almost all rudders. also the trailing edges tend to split also.

 

[Adam]

Thank You

Thank you, Brian and James. It seems to be holding together quite well so far. I also injected about 1/2 quart of epoxy into the lower 1/2 of the rudder because of some delamination. Everything seems to be pretty solid once again.