18 Feb Kimberley’s Bosun Training part 2 – rudder refurbishment
Imagine Kimberley’s delight (and a touch of apprehension) when Pete told her that she would be refurbishing a rudder, not just any rudder, but the rudder from the RS500 owned by dinghy sailing icon Steve Cockerill, of Rooster Sailing! Steve won a professional dinghy refurbishment as his prize for winning the Rooster West Country Boat Repairs RS400 Southern Tour 2021, and chose his RS500, to get it ready for the World Championships at the RS Games in Weymouth, this year.
Kimberley took on the task of refurbishing the rudder. Upon examining it, she found it had some typical dings on the edge and also some deep cracks in the fibreglass.
Stage 1 of the job was to sand off the top layer of gel from the edge with a Dremel tool, which for those new to boat repair is a rotary tool with a small delicate head, almost like a dentist tool. From there she was able to assess how much the fibreglass had cracked and with Grant’s guidance smooth it out and then add thin layers of new fibreglass to rebuild the edge.
Next task was to re-build the bulb at the end of the rudder, adding fibreglass with chopped strand to make it really strong, rounding it off and then smoothing it.
Kimberley says she really enjoyed working on the foil, getting real satisfaction from matching the colour, which took several attempts as it wasn’t a standard colour.
With the foil (and the rest of the boat) as good as new, we wish Steve the best of luck in the RS500 Worlds!
In case you missed Kimberley’s intro and part 1 – catch up here
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