Pictures of my new rudder

[timebandit]

That is a knock down
It is what sailboats do best:dance:

I would like to add a strip of metal to the castle, it would stiffin it up for sure. As for the weather helm, I trim the sails and lower the headsails if the wind is that strong. I've never been knocked down in strong winds but have had the mast parallel to the water and it scared the hell out of me. I think the Macs are designed to let wind blow over the sails when almost horizontal and then stand back up.

 

[Mac]

timebandit

Your right that was a knockdown!! I always thought a knockdown was when your boat flips over and doesn't come back up! I know now when to take the 150 down!! Have a good one!

 

[Mac]

Oceana

Nice work, Jerry, I really like the wood grain.

How does a rudder work? Does it merely divert water and steer the boat around? Why not have a really wide rudder, then?

Will almost any rudder modification exceed the performance of the stock rudder? What would be unbiased performance data to evaluate a rudder?

Where does induced drag enter into the picture? Will a smaller chord of rudder with a good airfoil shape, end up more effective at steering the boat with less wetted area? Would that smaller rudder have better light air performance?

By the way, the daggerboard I had made for my boat weighed 25-30 lbs more than the stock fiberglass dboard. It had quite a bit of molten lead pored into bored holes at the base, and then HDPE was welded over the lead. Unfortunately, I broke that dboard off flush with the bottom of the dboard well while motoring up the Snake River. It had a great airfoil shape. Now I have a stock dboard again.

Good point! Your right, in light wind it does hinder performace. I thought bigger was better. I'm in the process of cutting it down alittle and go from there.