SAILBOAT RESTORATION: Beneteau Rudder Failures and Rebuild

Why do Beneteau rudder failures occur? In this episode during one of our sailboat restoration projects I deconstruct and rebuild a 28 year old Beneteau rudder!
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SV Acadian
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[@Intothemystic2025]

Wow. Such a great job. Love the open. Really appreciate your step by step rudder fix. Cheers guys!!!

[@SVAcadian]

@intothemystic2025 Hey thanks and cheers to you as well!

[@RobHealey]

In case you don't know, the rudder cracks along the edge because there is a twisting/flexing motion when sailing and that eventually causes the crack. The solution is to brace the rudder internally to prevent the twisting and also use strong cloth to wrap around all edges, or it will just happen again. HTH

[@SVAcadian]

@RobHealey hey man thanks for the comment! Our Rudder had an impact event which caused some damage… water ingress… which is what led me to opening it up. I’d agree pressure on the rudder will likely cause stress cracks but not bad after 28years of use. I’m interested to understand what you mean by strong clothe wrapped around all edges?
cheers

[@RobHealey]

@@SVAcadian I'm not a pro, just an interested amateur who built his own rudder for a 33ft Adams ten after seeing several rudders break along the edge cracks that I saw in your vid. From building a rudder I learned a few things. I began with a flat bottom edge, but that cavitated when running shy with a spinnaker, sometimes a sharp pull or two would break the cavitation but generally we had to let fly the spinnaker sheet or round up. I put an elliptical edge on the bottom and the problem completely disappeared. My boatbuilder friend and i looked at several broken rudders. One was an aluminium shell and it was obvious that a bending/twisting force had caused fatigue along the edge, The crack along the leading edge then allowed water to be forced in under pressure from moving forward and opened the rudder up like a butterflied prawn.
On my rudder I made the rear edge only 1mm thick and the last 4cm was pure glass and cloth, not wrapped around. I never had any problems with it and it made for a very good release of water flowing past. The front and bottom edges had glass cloth wrapped around from one side to the other. It makes sense to reinforce where the cracks occur. If I was doing it now I'd probably put a layer of kevlar or similar, covered with glass cloth. My comment was mainly to point out that the leading edge needs that kind of wrap around support, so strong cloth and epoxy is recommended because it has strength. HTH

[@SVAcadian]

@RobHealey really cool you had the opportunity to look at several failures first. We’re seven months in and all good so far.

[@RobHealey]

@@SVAcadian This was in the 90's, I was racing an Adams ten in mixed fleets. My boatbuilder mate and I would walk around the boatyard looking at yachts when they were hauled out in the boatyard. We knew the characteristics of many of the boats - whether they rounded up a lot, were hard to steer, didn't point well etc and our discussions lead to several conclusions. When I built the new rudder which had about 5ft underwater and was transom hung, I was able to make it perfectly balanced so that I could steer with my finger nail! That was too balanced and I changed it so that it was light but gave me some feel. There were 2 other identical Adams Tens and our yacht always had the edge on them despite us having tired old sails. I always put that down to the rudder being more efficient and that I tried not to move it too much, preferring to ease the main in strong gusts rather than fight with the rudder. I learned so much from racing that made coastal cruising better. Good luck to you.

[@helomech1973]

Wow, looking good.

[@SVAcadian]

thanks

[@SteveCockneyRebel]

Nice job

[@SVAcadian]

@steve-cockneyrebel8614 hey thanks

[@MondoRockable]

I am just amazed at the cost-cutting Bene goes to with their products. No internal framework for the rudder???? You must be joking.
Saw another video of someone who used an old Bene rudder as a template. The rudder post, given no internal framework, spun around inside the rudder, and was essentially useless.
Unbelievable shitty products.

[@SVAcadian]

@MondoRockable I wouldn’t go as far as saying it’s a shitty product… Although i’d agree, Beneteau needs to redesign their rudders with the addition of an internal structure. These boats are marketed as Racer/Cruiser yachts, which they do very well, just look at the yacht lineup in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, The Beneteau First is a very popular model. Our boat is a Beneteau First 42s7, We’re very satisfied with the boats performance, the boats ability to point and ease of cruising at hull speed in light air and heavy weather sets it apart from most cruising sailboats.