Re: Weedless rudders

My Huki weedless rudders seem to work well for most weeds except eel grass. Eel grass has a microscopic texture that hangs on tenaciously.

In rough water the bobbing action will shake the eel grass free, but in the flats even one or two blades of grass can be frustratingly slow.

I've heard that polishing and waxing the leading edge of a rudder as glossy as possible will help them shed eel grass.

You can always make something similiar to this. Its just a 3mm wide perspex half triangle. The area of the hull where the triangle would be glued on was sanded (so was the bottom of the perpex piece) and an epoxy glue used. Just make sure you leave enough space for when the rudder turns.

Simple and it worked!

Hope it helps.

You can always make something similiar to this. Its just a 3mm wide perspex half triangle. The area of the hull where the triangle would be glued on was sanded (so was the bottom of the perpex piece) and an epoxy glue used. Just make sure you leave enough space for when the rudder turns.

Simple and it worked!

Hope it helps.

How has it been so far? It seems to be a fairly cheap but effective way to get rid of those weeds and debris. If perspex is not available, what other material can you recommend?

Here in SA, weed deflectors like that are often made from fibre glass or even (if you're that pedantic about weight) carbon. Guys often make them from discarded bits of material.

They work well for plastic & occasional pieces of weed in the sea.

I have an apparently "weedless" rudder AND a carbon weed deflector on my Huki. Yet, I was plagued by eel grass last evening. I had to stop and back down about every ten minutes to clear the numerous pieces of eel grass. It was incredibly frustrating ???. The weed deflector will only prevent the weeds from getting stuck between the hullk and top of rudder. If the leading edge of the rudder is not swept back enough, eel grass will collect.

Eel grass must only be a problem in New England waters because if everyone had to deal with it, a better solution would already be in place.

Huki offers a stern hung rudder that is held down by bungee. I think it would be relatively easy to attach a line and run it forward so I could flip the rudder up on the fly to clear weeds. This rudder can be swapped out with the understern rudder in just a few moments without any tools. This may be a good, but expensive, solution.

I am tempted to cut and re-fare an existing rudder blade with a shallower leading edge angle. Does anyone know what the leading edge angle needs to be for an under stern rudder to shed eel grass? The Huki and apparently also the Epic rudders' leading edge angle are too steep to be truly weedless.

If in a race and you had speed-sucking weed on your rudder, what would you do? Would you just keep on paddling at the .2 - .5 knot decreased speed? Would you stop and back down to clear the weeds? Would you jump overboard clear the weeds by hand and re-mount? I've been wondering if jumping overboard would be faster than the time it takes to stop, back up far enough to visually see the weeds clear and then re-gain speed again.

RE:MFB

Give me about a week or so and i will see what other materials work and i will let you know.

RE:MFB

Give me about a week or so and i will see what other materials work and i will let you know.

Thanks, appreciate it! ;D

Eel grass must only be a problem in New England waters because if everyone had to deal with it, a better solution would already be in place.

I am tempted to cut and re-fare an existing rudder blade with a shallower leading edge angle. Does anyone know what the leading edge angle needs to be for an under stern rudder to shed eel grass? The Huki and apparently also the Epic rudders' leading edge angle are too steep to be truly weedless.

If in a race and you had speed-sucking weed on your rudder, what would you do? Would you just keep on paddling at the .2 - .5 knot decreased speed? Would you stop and back down to clear the weeds? Would you jump overboard clear the weeds by hand and re-mount? I've been wondering if jumping overboard would be faster than the time it takes to stop, back up far enough to visually see the weeds clear and then re-gain speed again.

I'm in San Diego and I'm the one who wrote the article on the original V10 homemade weedless rudder. Eel grass is a major pain in the butt here so I shaped the rudder with a 38 degree sweep to get it to be truly weedless. Less than that and I would probably work less and less effectively. The problem with swept rudders is that they do not perform well at surfing speeds because so much area behind the shaft makes the rudder feel very heavy at high speeds. I'm still working on a good design that's weedless but also high performing. It's not an easy design problem. These days I trade back and forth between my weedless rudder for relatively flat days and the original rudder if I expect surfing conditions.

What to do in a race if you get hung up? Good question. I once did a fast rudder clear during a workout piece with my workout partner and figured I lost approximately 20 seconds of time to him clearing my rudder and getting back up to speed. How long would it take to lose 20 seconds if you had weeds on your rudder during a race? Hmmmm....