Deadwood

[Benlieb]

Can anyone tell me what is underneath this area structurally in front of where the rudder joins? Hoping it is solid as opposed to hollow. Built a new rudder and need to modify a bit. It's a cd28.

[Jim Walsh]

Solid fiberglass. Your second shot at the base of the rudder is the bronze shoe. If you grind the fiberglass away you'll find it is attached ba a few bronze rivets which are peened on both sides of the shoe. The area where your cutlass bearing comes through has a filler to fair the hull to the aperture.
Here's a couple pics I took last December when I stripped my hull down to the gelcoat in preperation to applying a barrier coat in the spring.
The gelcoat adjacent to the rudder must have stuck to the mold or the factory spotted a void and filled the area with fiberglass to fair it. That's what the yards "fiberglass pro" surmised. It was all perfectly fair and was not due to any subsequent damage after leaving the factory.

[Benlieb]

Mine was very bad in that area as well, had to fill some mega blisters/ voids. Had some concerns so wanted to ask.... I'm adding an exterior shoe to avoid having to hack the whole bottom corner of the boat to pieces, but I still need to cut off the protruding tip of he old shoe and grind the glass back a little. Same at the top I want a collar on the rudder shaft to prevent the rudder from unshipping if it hits bottom. Thanks for the info.

[Jeff and Sarah]

Jim, from the pictures it looks like you stripped the bottom down to the gelcoat, not to fiberglass. A nuance, but not quite the same thing.

Benlieb, did you have much trouble removing your rudder without removing the bronze shoe? From other rudder repair posts I've seen on this website, that shoe needed to be removed by grinding back the fiberglass encapsulating it and driving out the bronze pins. I'm interested to hear a better way as it seems you might have come up with one!

[Jim Walsh]

Jim, from the pictures it looks like you stripped the bottom down to the gelcoat, not to fiberglass. A nuance, but not quite the same thing.

You are correct, I knew what I did but my typing finger was confused

[Benlieb]

Jim, from the pictures it looks like you stripped the bottom down to the gelcoat, not to fiberglass. A nuance, but not quite the same thing.

Benlieb, did you have much trouble removing your rudder without removing the bronze shoe? From other rudder repair posts I've seen on this website, that shoe needed to be removed by grinding back the fiberglass encapsulating it and driving out the bronze pins. I'm interested to hear a better way as it seems you might have come up with one!

Yeah after the bronze shaft disintegrated after some epoxy dripped into the shoe and I tried to break it free, I basically condemned the whole rudder. I cut the shaft above the rudder where it goes into the hull. With the cut and the bottom of the shaft dusted down to about half its original diameter, I could pull the rudder out. In retrospect I shouldn't have done this, and would probably just sleeve in a new piece of shaft at the bottom of the rudder, like the newer Dorys were built..... But at that point I had been told I could have a new rudder made for cheap which turned out not true. But yeah that's how I got it off without removing the shoe. After a good bit of interneting I think I'll try to remove and reuse the old shoe and hope not much glasswork has to go into repairing it.... I have to get my boat picked up with the travel lift to install the rudder and hope to splash that day instead of doing 25 layers of glass repair after that.....