The shop neighbors who were perplexed by the stern tower were satisfied now by seeing the self-steering wind vane installed. It’s the brown unit in these photos. The actual vane that gets pushed by the wind is in a deeply “reefed” position, tilted way back to fit under the skylight ceiling.

The rudder control cables come thru the tower shelf and will get tied to the legs and then routed to the (to be built) yoke atop the new rudder’s trim tab pivot pin.

We’ll get back to those details in a couple of weeks when the rudder cassette is built.

The rudder has been shaped, wrapped once in bi-directional carbon and had the 14 layers of carbon unidirectional cloth added in the recessed channels down both sides of the board. First, here’s a look at how that embedded pivot tube just fits inside the shaped rudder.

And underneath the white fairing compound you can just see the staggered layers of carbon uni.

The only unexplained part of the rudder plans is how one would keep the blade’s curve intact over the area that gets cut out of the foam core and replaced by that big carbon-wrapped spine piece. So we have a flat spot there that I’ve had to build back up with fairing compound. I’m doing the fairing work now, before adding the final outer layer of carbon wrap.

Ok, that side is done and we’ll need a few fairing sessions to finish the other.

While the rudder layers cure, work progresses on prepping the windshield and hardtop for paint, and the floors for the aft cabin and equipment room. Pictures soon.