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CLC Kayak Sail Rig build

I had a friend that manages a boatyard in Seattle take a look at my rudder set up and he had a good suggestion. He suggested that I create a rudder bracket out of fiberglass or carbon fiber. I would mold it to the stern of the boat and make it overlap a good several inches. I would make is bolt on so it could be removed for regular kayaking.

Does anyone have any good sources of carbon fiber? I have never worked with it and don't know which type would be best. Would carbon fiber be that much better than fiberglass? I have a ton of 'glass cloth and would only need to buy epoxy for that.

Casey
 
I have been thinking about the idea of putting rudders on the amas and linking them with the main rudder. I wonder if this would make the boat easier to turn and in doing so taking some of the pressure off the main rudder.

While this is common on catamarans, I have not seen it on trimarans, so I don't know how well it would work.

Anyone have any thoughts?
 
I have never seen twin rudders on a trimaran, so this is a guess. I do not think it would work too well. The downwind ama is doing most of the work. On trimarans I have seen the windward ama is often partly or fully out of the water. The greater the wind, the more force would be on the downwind rudder, with the upwind one doing very little. I think the end result would be some of the same problems you have now, with the need for a very sturdy mount on both amas and a lot of linkages between the 2 adding complexity and slop to the system.

I like the idea of a molded mount on your stern. You could use the main hull itself as the male mold as long as you found a good releasing agent (wax?). I do not know much about carbon fiber, but plain old epoxy and glass would seem strong enough. Your hardware could be embedded in the mount too. The people I have talked to about carbon fiber have said it can be hard to work with as it is hard to cut and difficult to mold to complex shapes. I am sure others on this site have a lot more knowledge about CF. It is going to blow up to 40 MPH around here in the next 48 hours, so work fast, get out there, and show us what that boat can do!
 
Well I went ahead and bit the bullet and ordered the carbon fiber and epoxy to transform my pointy stern into a vertical one. I will post photos of my franken-creation once I get the work started.

In case anyone is interested I got the carbon fiber from Fiberlay in Seattle.
 
I started building the rudder mount "end cap" today. It is very different working with carbon fiber versus fiberglass. For one, it is much harder to tell when the carbon fiber is fully wetted out as it doesn't go clear!

I didn't take a photo today because it would have been really boring to look at! Basically what I did was use some okume plywood to turn the sloping stern into a vertical stern. This piece of laminated ply and the last few inches of the boat were covered with a layer of carbon fiber cloth. I put down plastic on the boat so the end cap would release from the boat. I will build up 5 more layers of carbon fiber by the time I am done.
 
Let the angels sing on high (thought I would get into the holiday spirit)!! The sea trials are over. The carbon fiber cap I built worked beautifully today. I had 8 knot winds with gusts up to 15 knots and there was no hint of a failure. I will post a photo or two when I get the chance.

I can't wait to start posting in the "where did you paddle this month" section rather than the building section!
 
that sounds great!
So can you take some pictures and tell us what you did and why it worked, etc etc etc??

.
 
What a great looking project. I was looking at the rudder and don't think you have enough mass forward of the pivot. Having sailed the Hobie AI the rudder and stearing in heavy wind is that boats weakest link too its on cables to a tiny trim tab like tiller and at 115 lbs with holes up thru the hull for the dagger board, peddle drive and various other sit on top issues it is a real pig. A lot of Hobie owners re drilled their rudders forward in the mounts for improved stearing. If its not to much trouble maybe you can kick the bottom forward when its down so the bottom is leading maybe an inch at a time. Sea trials on a prototype usually end with crash testing so don't be so hasty to call them over. Keep up the great work.
 
Sea trials are not actually over. The rudder broke again and I was a bit annoyed with it so I haven't touched the project in a couple of weeks. I will probably get working on it again and try and work things out soon. In the mean time I will try to get some photos up of my carbon fiber end cap.
 
835_Rudplan_1.jpg

I ordered plans to make a rudder like this one maybe if you have some left over carbon fabric you can make yours stronger.
835_r11ih0_1.jpg

Here is a hobie sailing rudder after the mod moving it forward and notched for hull clearance. They discovered the standard rudder for paddled boats was over powered by the addition of sails.

Have you considered righting in the event of a capsize. On the Hobie the amas can fold flat against the hull with one pull pin and the boat can be rolled upright.
With your design you may be able to submerge one if you stand on the one (downwind) to get the boat to come back upright if not any ideas?
 
When I get some time I will try and build a new rudder that has more area in front of the pivot. The only problem is that I dont have any more of the wood I used to build the rudder and not nearly enough carbon fiber to make a new one from scratch.
 
Can I ask what part is broke?

Only found one close up picture of the rudder so far.
Do you think you can fix the new break?
I was thinking if it needs more torsonal reinforcement one way without changing the appearance if it doesn't already have this might be sawing the part in half like bookmatching and laminating carbon or standard cloth 2 to 4 6oz layers or one 12 to 18oz layer making the part .010 to .020 thicker overall with vacuum clamping or it could be stiffened with multiple layers of glass just on the outside alternating the direction of each cloth applied 20 to 60 degrees.

Best of luck with the sea trials here is a video of some testing you can duplicate at your own risk..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdVHhg5600Y

One more question about the drawing of the rudder I'm not sure about, in the complete pic it looks like the long edge of the rudder is leading with it up, is the long edge leading or trailing in the water?
 
The part that broke was the piece of hardwood that the bolt went through to attach the rudder to the boat. What happened was the bottom bolt, which was smaller, broke and the force on the wood/single bolt was too much. My plan for a simple repair is to glue a new piece of hardwood and then laminate some carbon fiber over it for strength. I think had the bottom bolt not broken, the rudder would be working ok.

Also, the long edge of the rudder is trailing in the water. I pretty much just took the shape of the leeboard and made it a little smaller.
 
hi keabird

on my rudder setup, i built a stainless plate with a tube welded to it,the plate is shaped to the rear deck. i used a feathercraft pin style rudder head. with the pin hole about 1.5 inches from the end of the deck. the plate and tube are set into the end pour of the boat making it a very strong point. i then used a piece of 3/16 6061 aluminum to make a new rudder blade to fit the feathercraft head.

i made the rudder so that about 1/3 is foreward of the pivot point making stearing effort less. you could also make the side plates that the cabbles attach to wider for more leaverage and less strain on the cabbles and peddals.

the rudder that i built is about 250 % bigger than a feathercraft double.
it is tappered and shaped so that a grounding will just tip it up and it seems to be very powerfull. turns my sailrig like a sports car.
so far no breakage but i havn,t done as much testing as i would like.

there are some pics in my thread,kayak sailing. might be worth a look.
i you need some pics of something let me know and i could email them to you. i would be happy to take some more detail pics of anything that might help you in your quest for better stearing.

mark.
 
I repaired my rudder for the last time yesterday. If this one fails I am definitely going to have one made from some metal. This time I put in a couple of eyebolts for a pin to go through. I have attached a couple of photos here so I don't have to explain too much.

Also, yesterday I cut out my magnetic hatch lips in favor of using good old straps across the outside of the hatches. The magnets worked fine, but about half of them started rusting and grew to twice their size thus keeping my hatches from sealing.

Anyway, you can see on my "frankenrudder" that once the repairs began any effort to make it look nice took a back seat to making it strong. Eventually I might try to clean things up, but only if it ever proves to be reliable. BTW, the eyebolts I added are on the bottom part of the rudder box.


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