Antares - Rudder Repair

Following the previous discussion, I removed the rudder at the end of October. My '85 rudder is a fiberglass encapsulated foam core, weighs maybe thirty pounds and floats enthusiastically. The fiberglass encapsulation was laid up in two halves by Catalina and then bonded to the foam core, somehow or another. The bond remains very good, however the seam had split all the way around creating a gap of between an 1/8" and a 1/4". (Unfortunately, I failed to take a "before" photo.) The following two photos were taken after the gap had been ground and cleaned out, slightly beveled and filled with epoxy.

A particularly nasty spot that was hidden beneath the lower pintle.

The through holes for the tiller and pintle hardware were also reamed out and filled with epoxy. After the fairing epoxy coats had dried, the hardware holes were redrilled and the entire rudder was sanded fair using an orbital hand sander with 60, 100, and then 220 grit wet sandpaper. Using sponge rollers, three coats of white epoxy topside paint were applied to the whole surface, and three coats of red anti-fouling paint were applied below the waterline.

Lessons learned (i.e., cautions):
1) Be very careful sanding, because the gel coat is extremely thin.
2) True drilling of the hardware through holes is crucial, especially for the pintles. Unfortunately, the pintles not necessarily being true themselves causes a problem for reinstallation. I recommend that you dry fit the hardware before painting, and expect to do some touch up epoxy work. Or, expect to do some major wrestling, swearing and touch up painting. 
3) When you think the anti-fouling paint is dry, it only looks dry. I stood my rudder on its head in a makeshift vise using my Workmate ShopBox for applying the anti-fouling paint. Worked great for three beautiful coats. Two days after the third coat, I laid the rudder down to install the hardware, and the weight of the rudder left "squish" indentations in the paint wherever the rudder was making contact with my work surface. So, I'd recommend reinstallation of the hardware prior to application of the anti-fouling paint...and wait, wait, wait for the paint to dry completely.