Weed-Free Rudder Strategies?

Under-the-hull rudder. Let's call it a surf ski - even though it isn't quite.

Flat bottom with pronounced vee going back to said rudder.

The rudder looks to be the right shape, and I've padded it up with foam tape so
that it's right against the hull when straight ahead... but once it turns, the
vee causes a gap to open up.

In ocean waves, it absolutely has to have a rudder - but there's no weed
problem... so no workaround is needed for ocean paddling.

Fresh water is where I'm having the weed problem. Didn't have it earlier
in the season, but now there's this long thin weed growing that the
rudder catches quite nicely.

On flat fresh water, technically the boat can be paddled with the rudder
completely removed - but it's really, *really* squirrely and I don't think
I'd want to get caught in a wind squall that way.

Options I can think of:
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- Disconnect the rudder cables and duct-tape the rudder's leading edge to the
hull - making it into a skeg - and find out if the shape is really right
for shedding weeds.

- Concoct some sort of skeg to replace the rudder... but how to attach it?

- FIt a spoiler on the hull to lift (actually sink...) the weeds enough
so they don't get caught in the rudder/hull gap.

- Remove rudder completely and hang some sort of lee board back there - probably
made from an old windsurfer weed fin.
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Is there any conventional wisdom on this? I'd think surf ski users would have
the most pressing problems in this area.

--
PeteCresswell

(PeteCresswell) wrote:

> - FIt a spoiler on the hull to lift (actually sink...) the weeds enough
> so they don't get caught in the rudder/hull gap.

I can't say I've got a solution, but this sounds like a skeg/rudder arrangement
that's used on some sailboats. Basically, the rudder forms the back end of a
skeg - the front half is fixed.

This won't work with your rudder if it is a balanced design. That is, if the
rudder post is not exactly on the leading edge of the rudder, the portion of the
rudder forward of the post will swing free of the skeg part and catch weeds anyway.

To get the weeds to clear on the fixed part, there's going to have to be some
sort of sweep angle down that won't catch the weeds. If you build up a skeg
with a shallow angle relative to the keel, the size might end up being so great
that you will end up with a kayak that leecocks - a situation that you don't want.

Mike