Bad Epic rudders?

So for a while now I have been having trouble with what I thought was the rudder lines moving and de-centreing my rudder.
Only a few degrees, but enough to annoy me as my self centering rudder system meant that I would have to have constant pressure on one pedal.
Stop re-centre the lines, good for a while.
I thought that maybe this is what happens when the lines get to a stage when they should be replaced.

It also seemed to come and go and sometimes when out, my boat seemed to pull one direction and I would blame a water current or some mysterious god as it would be fine later on in the same paddle.

Checking the rudder system found the tiller clamp tight and lines to look in good conditions.

It often got a little crooked if I went out through waves with some heavy whitewater.

I figured that I was getting out into conditions that I hadn't been getting out in before and that sometimes the boat would be pulled offline by currents.

I also figured that sometimes I was just being over critical but I would often whinge to my paddling partners how my boat was going crooked and inquired if theirs was doing the same.

So I went out today, got wiped out in the surf zone, (longer story than that), but my rudder was crooked and I headed into the beach basically getting washed sideways and dragging one leg to steer it.

Shifted the cables as I have been doing lately, taking a mental note that I have to fix this problem once and for all.

I then found that the rudder was crooked to the tiller.
I thought that the tiller must have slipped, but it was quite tight and the little alignment pins were still in the centre.

Grabbed the rudder, and although not broken and still appeared in perfect condition, if I tried with a bit of pressure I could turn it on the shaft.

When I got back to the car, I broke the rudder open to find that the three pins that lock the shaft in place had virtually no carbon surrounding them, just the foam core.

There were little channels where the pins had been moving in the foam except for one side of the centre pin that had a little carbon around it, and it was also bent on that side.

So it appears that since I have had this rudder on, it has been moving and that only half of one locating pin was holding it in place.

A little while ago there was a thread on here and I mentioned that the two new Epic rudders I purchased were not finished well with shafts the wrong length and drilled incorrectly and had molding flash around the edge.

This was one of these rudders.

When I got home, I removed the rudder, grabbed my other spare and out of curiosity after I had it in the tiller clamp, tried to twist it, low and behold, this other brand new rudder is suffering from the same disease.

I then fitted an older rudder that I had previously bent and straightened, but had retired to a spare as I new that it had suffered damage.

This rudder seems fine.



So if you are in possession of some of the rudders that were not properly finished, and/or had the incorrect drilling/shaft length, I suggest you check them as there may be more out there than the two I got.

I now look forward to some straight paddling again without the niggling steering problems that have been annoying me of late.

Pity it has cost me $250 and several months of minor annoyance to finally solve the issue.

Wow, Rab! How long ago did you purchase these diseased rudders?
My original rudders from the boat purchase in 07/2011 have not indicated any weakness like you've experienced, though they required a lot of fairing work. I just recently (this past month) received a surf rudder from Waylon (Epic) and I was really surprised to see that it looked almost perfect. The original rudders have hollow stainless steel shafts, while the new surf rudder has what appears to be a solid SS shaft, and it does feel like it weighs more...Alright, just weighed them both...original rudder: 136 gms; new rudder: 137 gms. No real difference.
I don't know how a rudder with a solid rod can weigh the same as a rudder with a hollow rod...unless the new rudder has a plugged end on a hollow rod (kinda looks welded at the end) and the rudder foil is slightly lighter. Both balance at nearly identical points along the rotational axis.
I've not tried the new rudder as I'd like to fair it up a bit (the leading edge is not absolutely perfectly parabolic due to the flashing grinding method employed in China), but it is much better than expected. The new rudder's rod is also very much on the same plane as the foil, unlike the original rudder. The original rudder's rod was off quite a bit from the foil's x-z plane, and I had to bend it to allow the rudder to be perpendicular to the hull bottom. This did not hinder the rotation of the rudder even though the rod is noticeably curved and un-straight.

New ones have titanium shafts.

I haven't broken a rudder for a longtime now, this ones been on since before I broke the boat.

Funny now, if I go back and read my comments in my training files, I mention the boat sometimes not seeming to go straight and what I thought was strange water not long after this rudder went on.

There was also a little bit of a cant to one side.

Looking at the shaft now, I can see that they have basically put the shaft in the rudder not deep enough, this caused the apparent misaligned holes and the need to shorten it because it hit the cover.

The shaft of this one also has a curve in the bit where it is ground down.
This is what caused the cant one way, but for the life of me I cannot see how this could have been bent in use and not shown any damage to the outside of the carbon, as the curve is over an inch long radius that was totally inside the blade.

The cynic in me almost thinks that somebody has been using shafts from near new broken rudders and making new rudders and flogging them off as new original Epic's.

It would explain the different finishing compared to the original and the first replacement I ever got.

I wish I kept the carbon bits now to examine as I sort of remember that the internal pins had a place to be located in in my original rudder and I am curious to see if the wrong shaft embedment made the pins miss their spot for solid location.

I only kept the shaft in case I wanted to use it to make a different style rudder in the future.

I will now go and get myself one of these new fandangled titanium ones.

What is even funnier, is that last paddle out before this, I fell of three times when I really shouldn't have when the boat seemed to turn left and I rolled out to the right.

I was blaming my only paddling a few times in the preceding weeks and my back being a little tight on that side.

Come to think of it, as I paddled out on the last day of using this rudder, the boat had a lean to one side, I was again blaming myself for not stretching.
I also seemed to have a lack of turning on full lock sometimes recently.

Titanium, eh. Yes, the new shaft has a slightly different patina than the original. And it tastes like unobtainium, too!
A closer inspection of the shaft revealed that it is also 6.0 mm shorter than the original, as well as the top pin hole is closer to the top of the foil by 7.75 mm compared the original hole. Trying it out in the boat... I can just see exactly half of the hole on top of the rudder tube. And the tiller clamp does not engage the whole shaft. I.e., the shaft is too short! This sucks.

Do the V10 and V12 rudders differ in length? When I ordered the rudder, I asked the person taking the order to please be sure to send me a *V12* surf rudder. Or did they change the rudder shaft lengths altogether? I'll call Waylon on Monday...

V12 shafts are longer than V10/V10 sport.
You have the wrong one.

Just talked to Epic in SC, they indicated it was one of the few manufacturing boo-boos. Sending me a replacement straight away.

Thanks to this thread I discovered a problem... I wouldn't have checked it until I really needed it. The new rudder looked fine until I tried installing it in the boat just to be sure of proper fit.

I've had a long running issue with the epic rudders. Started off snapping the carbon shaft about 6 months ago and since then I've bent 2 hollow stainless shafts (WTEO snapping the carbon shaft, I haven't hit anything). A couple of weeks ago I was using the titanium shaft for just the second time and after having a large wave break on me, I ended up surfing backwards. Rather stupidly, instead of just rolling off, I tried to stay on and consequently the rudder was subjected to a lot of force.

Interesting, the failure point wasn't the shaft however the rudder slightly delaminated into the two halves and once I made it back to shore I could turn the rudder around the shaft by about 5-10 degrees. The local epic dealer gave me a great deal on another titanium shafted rudder and is fixing up my split one for an emergency spare (to be used in good weather for short paddles).

As an aside, my GPS registered 24.9km/h while going backwards! I know this isn't a true indication of the speed (i read the 68.8km/h thread with much interest) however it seemed every bit as fast as that. I'll put up a screen capture of the paddle when I can work out how to do it.

Sounds about right, I've got plenty of backwards runs in the 20's.

The only thing is that the bucket is sometimes full of water then and in my case the GPS submerged, but the software soon figures out where it was and where it is now and calculates the speed required.

I find it amazing that the most expensive rudders on the planet are so prone to breakage. Of the 6 skis I've owned (each with at least 2 different rudders) I can't think of a single rudder failure. Obviously price isn't a guide to quality.

The backwards run heading out through the break is how my rudders have all broken.

I don't think it is necessarily an Epic problem, more one of location.

Mine have pretty much all been damaged when I have had to wait for surfers or standup paddle boards and end up dead in the water when hit by a big foamy.

Usually the rudder hits the sand when the front lifts and the boat gets slammed backwards and I don't think too many rudders will survive in that circumstance.

Every time I have legitimately busted a rudder, the tiller bar has been bent as well, so obviously a fair bit of force involved.

The stupid composite shafts were just that, stupid weak and well known for breaking at anytime for no apparent reason.
The alloy ones not much different and spent more time bent than straight.

The price paid for pushing the weight/performance envelope.


The hollow stainless up until this one have served me well.

If I didn't have to negotiate the river entrance here I might have less damage.
Come to think of it, every bit of damage I have suffered has been crossing the Currumbin bar and always involved either a surfer or paddle board.

I may simply be better off to drive a little further and just go out off the beach somewhere.
But I do like the daily negotiation of the point and it's magnified waves, it keeps you on your toes, and coming in is always fun (or scary).

This last rudder is the only one that has not hit the sand, although I did roll the ski when the wave stood up surprisingly high further out than I thought they were breaking, so it may have taken a hit from the lip when the ski was upside down with me hanging onto it.

But to my eyes, these two rudders I got were just simply crap, they shouldn't have passed any quality control with the shafts the wrong length/improperly drilled, so it is an indication that there is no quality control other than hope the little Chinese man does a good job.

A simple template to sit the rudder in after it was finished would take all of two seconds to do and would have picked up the problem, so it is obvious that no attempt has been made to even allow for mistakes in production to be picked up apart from somebody happening to notice it.

So in that regard, simply a FAIL at management level, if you have not got in place any quality control measures then you cannot hope to have a consistent quality product.

I don't want to bag Epic too much, because from my point of view, I think they have done a lot to move surf ski production out of the dark ages.

Until recently, they were simply the best finished ski out there with the V10 probably being the first ski to offer a high performance to tippiness ratio that made the sport more accessible.

But right now, with a pair of crap rudders, the inability of getting a replacement tiller bar for over a year now so I just keep straightening my existing one, an Australian wholesaler that has them marketing at a price far and above all others, I look at the beautifully finished Nelo demo XXL ski sitting in my racks, and it would be hard to justify any new Epic in my future.

Kind of sad really to see what was probably the leader in boats a couple of years ago to slowly get left behind.


Rant over, the radio just issued a dangerous wind warning for this neck of the woods, time to see what a Nelo XXL can do, or maybe just go swimming a lot, soon find out......

So what do your rudders cost?
My last rudder for the Vault, ex South Africa, cost about $55.
Prior to this a couple of rudders from Think were, I can't remember really,
but I feel they were about $65-$80. I was pleasantly surprised anyway.
Best thing was to phone up and say...I'll have a number 3 rudder. So much choice for a rudderphile like myself.
Sent of an email to custom kayaks requesting details of rudder options for the wifes Horizon. No reply. I can't understand why rudders aren't marketed more by manufacturers. It's a bit like fries at McDonalds.

$125 Aussie a piece.

A paddling friend can get a rudder for his EOS 660 sent from South Africa for less than a third of the price and delivered quicker.

Fark me.

Not only do I have to pay through the nose for them, but I have to carry my own stock of the things because they are always out of them.

Uno max is starting to look mighty attractive right now.

But I did have a good if short scary paddle.....

What was the good, if short scary paddle?

Nelo XXL testing

Rightarmbad wrote: Nelo XXL testing

Would love you to do a full blown review for us, you've shown in your previous posts your analytical ability, now put it to good use and give us your Assesment of this ski. Some photos wouldn't go astray either.

I am particularly interested given we've both come from V10's and are very close in body shape.

Speaking of "bad", from the 2 Epic rudders that I've had (and still have) both had voids in the layup. See my thread here www.cpakayaker.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=6468 that has some photos of my damaged rudder - the outside hard shell was either very thin or with voids on the leading edge