It took a few hours today to get the trim tab properly spaced in its rudder slot, after the hinge-area covers were built in carbon. It’s all done now, ready for some final fairing and paint. Now we can build the rudder cassette that mounts on the stern of the main hull. That needs the completed rudder to serve as the mold for the cassette shell. Work starts next week.

Hinge covers starting out in foam core:

Needed vacuum bagging to conform to the tricky shape …

And the result covers the hinge area nicely, hopefully providing clean enough water flow in the neutral (straight ahead) position.
This building method with the hinge tube imbedded at the start and the tab cut out from the completed rudder has resulted in everything lining up just right. (Sure glad I didn’t try to retrofit a trim tab hinge tube in to the first rudder built last year).

PS – the boat sat quiet for two days when Jeanne turned up the house thermostat on the first cold night this fall – yep, the 25 yr old furnace croaked. Saved a bunch of money by doing our own demolition, new condensate drain under the house and building a sturdy new platform for the furnace man to come in as the hero. Final price tag was ironically exactly the same as the boat’s new Suzuki motor. I like the furnace’s 10yr warranty better!