strangest thing just happened, wondering if anyone else has expierienced this, we were just sailing slowly upwind, wind could'nt have been more than 10 kts, when we tacked the rudder casting broke in 2 places, the disturbing thing is I just replaced that casting last October because the adjusting screw siezed up in the previous casting.
Anyone ever heard of these being defective, or a similar situation?

I know of a bad batch of Rudder blades (Alter cup boats last year), but usually the castings are pretty robust. If you have the spring locked down too tight, I've seen them break when the rudder tries to kick up. Happened to us once.

Big question. Do you tow with your rudders on? They get a LOT of vibration from road and wind vaneing them. ALWAYS take them off.

Doug [color:"orange"] [/color]