Rudolf and Rob,

 

So, what is the advantage of having the rudders mounted on the beam? The obvious solution would seem to be to use the same sort of mechanism that I have drawn, but just move it to dedicated "mini-beams" further out on the leeward hull. I remember photos of Rob's rudder for Solitarry that looked like it was mounted that way, but I have gotten the impression that Rob has moved back to the beam mounted rudder idea.

 

Am I just rehashing what has already been answered? I know I have read every post in this forum, but I could be forgetting.

 

- Gardner

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 4:42 PM, Rudolf vd Brug <rpvdb@freeler.nl> wrote:

 

Hi Gardner,

The new rudders on BD are about 8 metres apart.(15m lw hull)

The old ones are 1.8 metres further apart.

For precise and easy steering I would say the closer the rudder is to the stern the better.

Robs idea was to combine functions of rudder and daggerboard in one big rudder blade.

For my taste steering is affected too much by placing the rudders too close together.

Too close here means placed on the beams 8m apart.

 

 

The boom doesn't seems that complicated. It's not difficult to build, it just takes more time

than you would expect. There are panels for the sides and bottom. Carbon flanges along the upper edges,

carbon in the lower edges. Couple of bulkheads, boom attachment to the mast. And don't forget sorting out

the rigging details, that takes a lot of time if you want to do it right the first time.

You should keep in mind that since I built this for a client it had to work right away.

If you are building your own boat and are comfortable to start sailing and add stuff as you go along, or change things,

that may get you on the water sooner. In the end you probably will have taken more time to get it right,

but it doesn't feel like it as jobs were spread out over a longer period of time.

 

Rudolf