First night back in the shop after a hairy three weeks of shopping, travelling, partying... whew! I think I prefer hanging out with my tools and little epoxy squeeze bottles to the stress of the Holidays. It's good to be back.

Anyway, after a bunch of messing around, I'm about ready to put the lid on this boat. This was an idea I had for minimizing the profile of a rudder; it's kind of the reverse of one of the rudder mounts in Nick's book. The pintle slides down into the hole. The slot half way down the gudgeon (center pipe) is where a pin will go to keep the rudder from falling out in a capsize. Water can get in and behind the pipe so there are spaces for it to drain forward and then a small watertight bulkhead just in front. Here's a shot of gudgeon before being installed as well as a rudder chassis prototype http://www.nwlink.com/~chips/cedarstrip/images/rudder1.jpg It looks like final rudder will have shorter steering arms and I'll rework that mortice/tenon into an easier joint to cut too.

- Chip
http://www.nwlink.com/~chips