I have a three year old Hobie 16 that I race a couple of times each year. Now to the problem, I have cracks on one of the rudders! The cracks are on both sides of the rudder.
![[Linked Image]](http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/119591-small1.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/119594-small3.jpg)
I don't sail through the surf but race in heavy weather sometimes. I sail with one rudder on the upwind and did some high speed runs a couple of weekends ago, top speed 22.4 knots.
This is my third Hobie 16 and during my 20 years of Hobie sailing I haven't heard about rudders breaking (except for the cheap lexan rudders). Has anybody else on this forum broken a Hobie carbon rudder just by sailing with it?
I sanded away the paint and the cracks continued through the carbon fibre, f-ck! I took a pile of unidirectional carbon fibre and laminated with epoxy so it should be ok now.
![[Linked Image]](http://www.catsailor.com/bb_files/119593-small2.jpg)
/hakan
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Wow. I have not seen that before.
The rudder shown is a Hobie Cat Europe product that is not sold in the USA, Americas and Pacific Rim countries.
We have the EPO2 blades from Hobie Cat USA. Have never seen a problem with them.
I had the exact same thing happen to my Hobie Euro rudders.
My newer boat has Hobie US EPO2's and I havn't had any problems.
Was it a carbon rudder or the white euro rudder that you got cracks in? Did it break?
My other rudder is free from cracks so my guess is that this rudder was a bad sample from Hobie Europe.
/hakan
It was a carbon rudder and the damage was exactly as in the picture. I repaired it with epoxy before anything really bad happened.