By Andy Cross: Few things on a sailboat are as important as a rudder. Don’t check your rudder, post, seals and skeg (if you have one) often enough and you are flirting with disaster when you get offshore and need it all to perform at its best when the weather is at its worst.
Last April when we pulled Yahtzee out of the water prior to the Oregon Offshore Race, we checked all of our gear and the boatyard didn’t see a need to drop the rudder for a full inspection. During the race and then throughout the summer as we circumnavigated Vancouver Island, a slow,
weeping leak developed on the leading edge of our skeg. What caused it is hard to say, but we did strike a log in the Strait of Juan de Fuca that seemed to exacerbate the problem. Read more.
