I'm building a 21' Hawaiian canoe as a tri and would like to use a regular rudder. Any ideas about which rudders are longest? My Wave rudder would work, but it wouldn't put much blade in the water since it will be attached to the crossbeam. I like the kick up feature of beachcat rudders and figure that a stout casting and a long foil would be good for this boat.

if you could make it work, try using an I20 daggerboard.

I would not try to use a daggerboard as rudderblade. It's profile is not suited for such use, and would quickly stall when you tried to turn.

For a 21 foot tri (your boat is beautiful by the way, very elegant shape to the beams [aka's?] ), I would have been willing to try most rudders and rudderheads from 20 foot beachcats.
With such a 'classic' wooden boat, I would have preferred a clear finish, and rudders and daggerboard in wood. For the rudder you would probably not do much wrong if you made a foil with a NACA 0012 section.

Is this a sailing craft, and if so, are you going to add a daggerboard as well?

Rolf, an Inter 20 dagger is long (4 feet) and thin front to back, very high aspect ratio, but in my opinion, too heavy (solid glass) and maybe a bit fat in cross section.

The Inter 20 dagger would work well as a dagger on this canoe if you build in a trunk for it, or if you could hang it off the side with strong support brackets.

If you can build such beautiful ama's, surely you can build a deep, laminated rudder of wood/glass. It would be much lighter (and cheaper) than the Inter 20 dagger.

What type of sail rig are you going to use? Windsurfer type?

Is this the plan set from Wooden Boat magazine? They had some plans for a sailing canoe/tri a few years ago.

It looks nice, good luck and please send pictures when it's in the water!

Hi Timbo. What I meant was that the foil profile (when viewed as an cross-section, not the outline of the foil) of any daggerboard is wrong for a rudder. Daggerboards operate within a narrow angle of attack, and does best with a quite flat profile. A rudder is turned (by that loose nut on the tiller) and need to work with a higher attack angle. Thus rudder profiles have more draft forward than a daggerboard would have.

Amen to using wood on this boat, preferably varnished!

I have a myriad of things to deal with, but I was thinking of using a standard kick up blade to launch the boat and then go with a custom rudder later. It is indeed a sailboat and has a beautiful 128 square foot sprit boomed leg o mutton in tanbark on a freestanding rig. That part is done. I have the hull done save the Manu (decorative bow and stern), seats, and finishing the hatches. The amas and the sprit need fairing and finishing. Speaking of which, should I use a paint like Interlux perfection or do you have a favorite. I do have access to an HVLP sprayer.

Back to rudders. Most Hawaiian canoes are steered by an oversized paddle and "poking" it shallower or deeper on the lee side depending on course desired or steering input needed.

I would prefer a modern steering system and a kick up rudder to boot. As an interim step, I was thinking of using a cat rudder mounted on the aft crossbeam prior to making a wood one.

As for the dagger issue, I'm looking for a kick up board since I'll be using this boat near Sanibel, FL with lots of sandbars and spoil islands and shoals. I will likely start with a leeboard attached to the gunwale. It will be a high aspect NACA profile and fairly long since I'd like to have a weatherly craft and a variable CLR.

Any other ideas?

I'll be sure to post some pice when I get closer to finished. In the meantime...sanding...

Dan

I've seen some very pretty wooden Tornado rudders...