I'm trying to find a replacement rudder blade for my P23. The blade tip is dinged up, the gelcoat is blistered and there's a suspicious looking crack line starting across the head.
I talked to RudderCraft about their kick-up replacement but it requires the whole ensemble - new rudder head & tiller. CCI (Phil' Foils) offered to make a custom blade (custom = $$). Foss Foam declined.
Anybody have another supplier for rudder blades?
I'm wondering if there's a possible modification to a similar rudder from another boat, e.g. might an S2 6.8 rudder be tweaked to fit.
Any ideas or suggestions?
I'm surprised that Ruddercraft won't sell just the blade - I thought they did. Is your existing blade beyond repair? Many folks have fixed dinged and cracked ones with Marine-Tex and/or fiberglass. Just a thought. Or, yes, maybe you can find one that's close enough dimension-wise to fit. Might need to drill the pivot hole in a different location though.
JGrahamK,
Ruddercraft has sold replacement rudder blades only.
I bought one a few years ago for my Com-Pac SunCat.
Note that this is not the blade of their kick-up rudder system.
Rather it is an aluminum blade encased in UHMW.
The aluminum is inserted into the upper approximate one-third of the UHMW.
The UHMW is shaped to an aero/hydro-dynamic profile.
Although not indexed on their web page under Precision,
you can find them indexed under other boat manufacturers.
For example, might the Com-Pac-23 replacement blade be adaptable to your need?
https://store.ruddercraft.com/index.php?route=product/product&path=181_29&product_id=133
They also offer custom sized non-kick-up rudders.
https://ruddercraft.com/custom-orders/
Talk to them again, but steer the conversation away from their kick-up rudder systems.
Perhaps by describing your current rudder's dimensional shape,
they can identify a product which is sufficiently similar.
(Be patient but politely persistent when talking to them.
I found it to be difficult to extract product information from them, other than their sales hype.
They fear giving away any design information, all of which they consider proprietary,
even simple dimensional information which you could see if you held the rudder in your hands.)
Regards, Roland