rudder rebuilt

[walt]

I am about to be the new owner of a 1990 26S (water ballast and swing keel) and it needs a rebuild of the rudder. For this rebuild, Im curious about a couple of things.

1. On two of the 26S boats Ive looked at, both of the rudders had some "unintential" contact with the outboard propeller at one time in their pretty long lives. Im guesing you are at most risk for doing this when your trying to come into dock in windy conditions and you are trying to both steer with the engine and rudder and things get a little out of control or maybe trying to go in reverse. Im just wondering about any advice to avoid this in the future.

2. I saw on some web site (cant find it now) about someone who made the rudder about 4 inches longer. The problem they were tying to correct was a rounding up of the boat in a big gust because too much of the rudder came out of the water from the heel. They reported a fair improvement with the extra 4 inches. Ill be sailing at a fairly gusty high mountain lake so am thinking about doing this modification also. Any thoughts on this?

[Frank C]

You'll find a lot of mods for the Mac Classics at Bob White's pages. About one-third down Bob's main page, a green box reads "Go Fast Mods." Under that link is this rudder design by Steve V in Sacramento.
Apparently, Steve's rudder is "THE mod" for classic Mac26.

White's page also hosts lots of owner pages for mods, and links to many direct owner sites, again for the Mac Classics. Bob Cassel is a new member here who also had his website linked over at Bob White's ... lots of good classic mods. In fact, lots of the mods on the classic Macs apply to the X and M-boats too.

[Craig LaForce]

Too much weather helm can be corrected by tilting the mast forward.
Bigger rudder just slows you down.

I made spare rudders for my X out of oak and then 2 part epoxy to cover it.
It took a lot of work, since oak is so tough.

[eric3a]

..

[beene]

Remembering the Mac doesn't have a traveller to open up the sail shape

Mine has a traveller, I know the X does not. Does the S not have a traveller?

I thought the classics were more like REAL sailboats.

[walt]

I beleive the original 26S boats (ie, the 26C) did not have a traveler but the one Im getting does. It would seem that a traveler and a boom vange can somewhat "make up" for each other but Im hoping the boat also has a boom vange. If not, Ill put one on.

Im also wondering about maybe just buying a new rudder from the place in Idaho "Idasailor"/

Cant wait to get the boat to start "diggin in".

[Frank C]

... First would be to check the rudder rake and decrease it to balance the rudders properly ...

Eric,
I've seen you refer to "rudder rake" several times, but it's unclear to me which direction you have intended, until now. Assuming it's same as for a mast, then a vertical rudder has zero rake and rake increases as the rudder toes under the transom?

[eric3a]

..

[walt]

One difference between the 26S and the 26M is that the M has two rudders and the S has only one in the middle. I have never sailed this boat yet so dont know if it has too much weather helm or not. My original question regarded the 26S with the rudder in the middle and what I understand happens is that in a big gust, the boat heels (probably a little more than a standard heavy keel boat) and the rudder in the middle of the boat comes "significatly" out of the water and looses lift and then the boat imediatly turns up wind. On a smaller sailboat I have, I had this happen one time and a bunch of water had come over the bow and the boat turned into the wind and stabilized. Ie, it was overall a good thing that the boat did this as it corrected and drained out before anything really that wild happened.

However, you dont want it to happen to early.. sort of like ski bindings which release too soon. That is what I understand why someone increased the length of the rudder by 4 inches. When I get the boat, Ill have to compare the Idasailor rudder to the stock on on the boat.

[magiccity_02]

On the base page referenced by Frank, "M&M Alexander 26D Mods" shows Idasailors rudder in comparison to the stock rudder. I would post the URL but I'm not qualified...

I just stripped and refinished my stock tiller and reconfigured my rigging as referenced by Frank. I hope the new configuration keeps me from having to use sheer pins to keep the rudder in the down position. I haven't tried it yet but it looks good from the garage!

[Frank C]

magiccity,
Nice looking boat, welcome abd. I think you're now beyond the posting controls,
but here's the M&M page, and the IDA rudder you mentioned.

[Chip Hindes]

Changing rudder rake to correct weather helm is like getting a bigger motor for your tow vehicle so you can drive with the brakes on, and excess weather helm does not improve pointing ability.

You correct weather helm by changing centerboard rake or mast rake.

Rudder rake is used to balance the forces on the rudder only.

[baldbaby2000]

Weather helm can also be caused by excessive boat heel. If this happens you want to depower the boat. Flattening the sail using the cunningham, outhaul and boom vang can help to a point. If the wind keeps increasing you may actually have to loosen the vang to let air spill out the top of the sail. Rail meat helps too. Eventually you need to reef.

If you don't have a traveller you can use the vang and mainsheet to get a similar sailshape.

[johnnyonspot]

Chip, what happened to the beard?

[walt]

One note regarding the Idasailor aftermarket rudder for the 26S. The stock 26S rudder is just under 4 foot the Idasailor rudder is also 4 foot. So the one shown in the picture must be custom made longer from Idasailor. They of course will do this no problem but its a little more expensive.

Is the extra length necessary? Other opinions say the better foiled standard Idasailor one works "wonderfully" but its important to keep it all the way down. So I ordered the standard Idasailer one and will put extra effort into a good method for holding it down and in place (such as shown in the original link in this thread).

Got the 26S, looks like its going to be a LOT of fun!!!