We sail in a lot of shallow water and I had too many rudder control lines rigged up for the Skipper to mess with, so why not design a fixed blade shoal rudder for ST. JACQUES? We tried out the Dabber rudder and it worked great, so we cut out a new blade with a little extra added to the trailing edge.
New blade comparison
New blade compared to Dabber blade.
Dabber rudder and new shoal blade comparison. I don't think the Dabber blade is exactly stock.
Sealed the new blade with TotalBoat Wood Sealer Varnish Primer.
All the shoal rudder bits.
The tiller end kept snapping due to some soft grain, so I grafted in a piece of cumaru (Peruvian teak). Cut the old piece out with a Japanese pull saw. Fastened the new piece with Pettit Flexpoxy.
Log of ST. JACQUES.
