More problems with my "new" Miracle: upper parts of rudders delaminating. What to do? Remove all delaminating stuff and put few layers of fiberglass with polyester resin and then cover it with gelcoat?



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Andrew
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A lot of great surfers were ruined by family and steady job.
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Yeah, pretty much. Except if it were me ... oh the evil I have done starting out that way, I'd use West epoxy. Remove the shredded bit. Glue everything back into alignment. Remove a couple or three of layers thickness of material along the break line. Add in four or five layers of new glass cloth along the break line coming out maybe a touch thicker (stronger) than before. Spray some white stuff over the top. Go sailing. I'll try and put up the pictures I made of a very similar repair on my 21 rudder a year or so ago.

'new'? How frustrating. You definitely need to repair that sooner rather than later.

Finally started working on rudders. When I sanded off some of loose pieces, it just started crumbling on pieces. Inside of rudder some weird crumbling stuff? What is that? I expected foam, wood ... but not this!



What to do now?
BTW: Is H20 rudders are different from rest of hobie cats? Can I use other cats rudders? Anybody sell rudders in good condition?

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Andrew
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A lot of great surfers were ruined by family and steady job.
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Andrew,
That looks like an improperly done old repair, but very fixable as mentioned above.

I have a set of Nacra 5.8/6.0 rudders if you really want to go that route.

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Philip
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IMO, since the rudder isn't currently usable (so you don't lose time on the water no matter what you do), you should drop about $150 and get all the proper stuff to fix. I'm terrible at top/finish coats, and probably haven't accounted for it in the $150 above, but I know for that price you can rebuild that thing and have a structurally sound foil.

Just don't skimp -- do it right. If it lasts twice as long (1yr vs 2, as doing it wrong won't last long) it's worth it.

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Rob
OKC
Pile of Nacra parts..
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I'll second that. I finally started working on my hulls, and I'm having to deal with a number of "not quite" repairs where someone took an easier route. They don't last, and they're even worse to re-do later.

$150 doesn't sound unreasonable for what it'll take. I just picked up top coat stuff for my hulls and rudders today, and that's about right.

Tom

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Tom Benedict
Island of Hawaii
P-Cat 18 / Sail# 361 / HA 7633 H / "Smilodon"
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