Re: Weedless rudders

An idea for Paul.

To get the swept rudder to perform better at planing speed, move the blade forward on the shaft. Usually about 1/3 of the area should be forward of the pivot to give a more balanced feel.

Good luck
Stuart

The Huki 4" weedless is pretty decent for ordinary weeds. It has trouble with Eurasian Milfoil (freshwater) which is as bad or worse than eelgrass. In answer to the question of "how much time do you lose if you keep paddling?" - don't. In a flatwater race, I had been keeping pace with a couple of guys who were really no faster than I was, until I managed to catch a clump of weed on the weedless skeg and rudder. By the time I figured out what had happened, it wasn't just the 200meters they'd opened, it was the 15 bpm my heart rate had gone up! Bail or stop, take your pick. Both are easier than trying to 'soldier on'.

Regards,

Marsh

Does anyone know if Huki weedless rudders fit or can be made to fit epic? Huki seems to offer a wide variety of rudders on the web site, otherwise I don't see any other options other than home brewed. The stock old style V10 catches weed much worse than my mako millennium; the mako doesn't cause me much problems so I think almost anything other than the stock V10 would be an improvement for my conditions.

Hi Guys,

I make the ONNO p-41 rudders for HUKI ....... these rudders can be adapted to fit any ski or kayak for that matter with very little trouble ..... usually at least two mounting options.

For information sake, these rudders were designed where eel grass and kelp are an almost constant problem. Both the rake and kick back tension are fully adjustable and take about a minute to do.
I usually run a small bit of rake and a soft tension and can blast through anything. In calm water one can feel the gentle 'bump' of the rudder releasing the grass and coming back down.

These rudders can also be reconfigured in about two minutes to a shallow water set up with a wider ranging and stronger kick back using the same components with nothing extra or left off. This gets the blade and housing a little higher up. Average weight for the p-41 rudder in a river running lay up is right @ 9 ounces.

The pictures on the HUKI site show a prototype, hence the incorrect rake. I only had a stern section of the boat to work with and was guestimating on that ....... sorted now.
Will have some better pictures of the dual set up of this rudder on our new, under construction website ... onnopaddles.com in a week or so.

Jonathan, expensive ? Compared to what ? These are well thought out, hand built, multi-function working pieces of art that take almost the same time to build as laying up a boat. Real world price would be double if it were in the cycling world for example ...... sorry, rant over : )

Hey Paul, did you make any more ? Was just starting to work with Chris on some weed blades for your kine boat, but then the big move came up and I ran out of time.

Yep, bring the blade forward a bit on the post, no steeper than 45 degrees, use a certain ; ) NACA 4 digit series section, slightly increase the surface area for X conditions as the swept back rudder is not quite as powerful, design the blade to close the gap as much as possible ,and even design in a super shallow leading edge angle right @ the root or use a little fixed low angle part in conjunction to get things going in the right direction.

Not sure how hard the Epic blades are to get but a REALLY CRUDE way to go for flatish water would be to just lop a bit off of a stock rudder and redo to shape /seal........ Or hang on a bit ........ I bet the guys @ Epic are working on a nice one in their spare time.

An idea for Paul.

To get the swept rudder to perform better at planing speed, move the blade forward on the shaft. Usually about 1/3 of the area should be forward of the pivot to give a more balanced feel.

Good luck
Stuart

Yeah, I know that would lighten up the feel and I would do it on my next "experiment" except that the weed deflector stuck to my hull would be in the way with that much rudder forward of the shaft. Seems like every solution creates a new problem.

Hey Patrick - haven't seen you around lately. Have you moved? I've made 3 rudders so far - using that certain NACA 4 digit section - and one of them has been donated to make a mold that's now in commercial production by a mutual friend. I'm sure that by the time I get a good one made, our friends over at Epic will roll out just what I've been looking for. I'm too lazy to design a whole boat like you so I just stick to rudders. They take up a lot less room in the shop.

Ha na Paul,

Yep, we are now in the land of the Outrigger Canoe ........ thinking I will make another couple mini skis to give to to the canoe clubs like some narcissitic (sp?) drug dealer to get the keike interested in something else ......... LOL. Had a couple skinny boat things going in S.D. right before we left, sold the Tideline Kayak molds to SEDA. The whole thing was just a blur for over a month. We were literally mailing packages to ourselves less less than 3 hours before our plane took off. Walked away from trial boats ..... info gathered, boats were never to be final plugs anyway but still sad to leave hard work behind ......... sigh. Even had a huge care package for Keith, full of Epoxy, misc. cool material and core samples ....... right after post office, chucked it all in a Dana landing dumpster on our way to airport ...... yep, it was that close. Settling in now after two moves down here alone, looks like i will have a solid 7 weeks later this fall to get something ( new ONNO convertable hard top ski ) done while Goi takes baby over to Thailand to visit parents. What ever you made, must have been pretty good for "friend"to like and build it.........LOL ........... No matter what, will have a universal weed blade available for varoius boats. Now know what is needed ....... BESIDES time to do it.

Aloha,p.out

Just to clarify on the original question. Are we looking for weed reflector to shed weeds off the rudder completely or are the weeds in question getting stuck between the rudder and the hull?

I put up the original post, mostly seems to be a problem of weed and trash collecting on the rudder and not between rudder and the hull. The trash falls off immediately when stopping or paddling backwards and usually if between rudder and hull its more tenacious. The Huki website lists several different rudder shapes and I was wondering if anyone had tried these or any others on the V10. On the same flat water course a mako doesn't seem to pick up much weed/trash but Ill have to stop and clear the Epic several times. Therefore it seems a different rudder would help; I could try to modify a Fenn but thought a more raked design would be better. Would a triangle glued to the hull be of benifit since I don't think weed is trapped between the rudder and hull?