What paint for a wooden rudder?

[ProDave]

Our new to us boat, a hunter Horizon 23 has a wooden rudder. When we got the boat mid season this year the entire rudder was painted gloss white. It is not a retractable rudder so the bottom half of it lives in the water all season.

Predictably on crane out the submerged half had a good carpet of marine growth.

We have now started stripping the rudder back to bare wood, and re painting from scratch but have hit a barrier what paint to use. Every gloss yacht paint we have looked at says "above waterline"

But what about the bit below the waterline? Ordinary antifoul same as you paint the hull? if so what primer?

What do others do?

 

[tillergirl]

Underwater primer x 2 + ordinary AF x 2

 

[Refueler]

Me ?? Base paint the rudder overall in a good enamel or epoxy based paint ... white would be suggested based on its previous ...

But make sure the wood is dry and well prepared.

Once that's done -- then the underwater part can get a couple of coats of same antifoul as you do the hull .....

Just for the record : I have never used Antifoul Primer. Never seen any difference my boat to others who have used. Second I prefer eroding antifoul to try avoid build up of layers.

 

[Tranona]

Back to bare wood, then 2 coats of Primocon and 2 of antifouling. Above the waterline white Toplac

As photo before final coats

 

[B27]

You could consider a hard antifoul, because the rudder is exposed to a lot of sun, it will grow more slime, you may scrub through the ordinary AF quite soon.

As it's removable from the boat you could consider epoxying it and using coppercoat, see how that works for you, maybe do the whole boat with it at some point?

 

[jamie N]

You could consider a hard antifoul, because the rudder is exposed to a lot of sun, it will grow more slime, you may scrub through the ordinary AF quite soon.

As it's removable from the boat you could consider epoxying it and using coppercoat, see how that works for you, maybe do the whole boat with it at some point?

The water in the Inverness Firth is quite brackish, being largely fed from the Rivers Ness & Beauly. I've found that fouling hasn't been any sort of problem, and the sunlight bearing down exacerbating slime growth isn't something that many on the Black Isle feel strongly affects them!

 

[ProDave]

The water in the Inverness Firth is quite brackish, being largely fed from the Rivers Ness & Beauly. I've found that fouling hasn't been any sort of problem, and the sunlight bearing down exacerbating slime growth isn't something that many on the Black Isle feel strongly affects them!

Speak for yourself.

Our hairy rudder on crane out day before the pressure washer got to it



Not much fouling on the hull painted with Gael Force anti foul, but a good carpet on the white gloss painted rufdder. Hence the need to do something different for next year.

Maybe things are better in the marina which is after all technically on the River Ness?

 

[Geoff Wode]

When I did my HH23 rudder last year, I stripped back to wood, split the laminates and rebuilt with epoxy and 6” A4 stainless deck screws.

Faired it, then coated wet on wet with 6 coats of epoxy. Flatted and keyed. Above the waterline I rolled and tipped a yacht enamel (Toplac) and below got 7 coats of copper coat.

A stiff brush gets rid of slime and it’s easy to do with a transom hung rudder.

 

[jamie N]

Good grief! I'd no idea that kind of growth happened! Best not to tell the marina as they'd put the price up for it being a further benefit!

 

[14K478]

The OP’s rudder is wood, so antifouling undercoat would be appropriate, particularly if an ablative antifouling is used.

 

[Refueler]

The OP’s rudder is wood, so antifouling undercoat would be appropriate, particularly if an ablative antifouling is used.

Not if its painted overall in the 'topside' paint before antifouling ...

 

[Tranona]

Not if its painted overall in the 'topside' paint before antifouling ...

Not sure why one would want to paint it with "topside" paint first if it is going to be antifouled. Recommendation from all the paint manufacturers is primer such as Primocon then antifoul. Just as in post#4. The grey part is new wood and primed ready for antifouling. final job here

 

[Refueler]

Not sure why one would want to paint it with "topside" paint first if it is going to be antifouled. Recommendation from all the paint manufacturers is primer such as Primocon then antifoul. Just as in post#4. The grey part is new wood and primed ready for antifouling. final job here

Yuz spends yer money as yuz wantz ....

 

[tillergirl]

Personally, I would recommending taking the rudder away and bin it. There is enough to paint already, it will save money and unnecessary drag and a consequential scrubbing. And you could avoid a debate about paint! (See #2 PS you can use the underwater primer for the top part as well)

P1010211 by Roger Gaspar, on Flickr

 

[Refueler]

My post was based on guys rudder was already painted fully with topside paint .... but of course later seems it was stripped ...

Having had and still own rudders of wood and other construction - I've never paid out on higher cost primers where its basically IMHO unnecessary. Todays paints are not those of yesteryear needing keying primers / binding primers etc. a reasonable two part epoxy based gives excellent adhesion / binding and base to antifoul over ... and whats more - if already in possession for other areas of boat etc. - why not ???

 

[Tranona]

Yuz spends yer money as yuz wantz ....

It is not a money thing - no more expensive than any other paint. Just a matter of choosing the most appropriate product for the job. If the OP does not want his rudder to look like that again then antifoul it following the instructions.

 

[ProDave]

We bought the boat mid season, it was out of the water when we saw it, but assumed it had previously been used and on some form of mooring or in a marina. So we didn't give much thought to the rudder paint finish, we had plenty else to do, we launched and went sailing.

This should be in the "how on earth did the previous owner manage" thread, with a gloss painted rudder, no sign of previous anti foul.

 

[Minerva]

One point to note - the size of your rudder, you may be tempted to take it home to refinish in the warmth of your home / comfort of your garage. Whilst this is, in and of it's self not a bad thing nor a bad way to spend a few winter evenings. You may find yourself tempted to prop the rudder against the wall / over a central heating radiator in your study to allow it to nicely dry out...

If you do this, you may discover two things; your rudder is constructed from a number of (formally square before shaping) timbers running it's length of the rudder and may be surprised that it then splits down along the join of some of the said timbers.

**cough** so I'm told anyway.

 

[Refueler]

It is not a money thing - no more expensive than any other paint. Just a matter of choosing the most appropriate product for the job. If the OP does not want his rudder to look like that again then antifoul it following the instructions.

I did not say NOT to antifoul.

 

[PeterV]

If you’re stripping back to bare wood I would coat it with epoxy as Geoff said above, but I would also add a layer of fine glass cloth into the resin as well. This is what I did with my identical Hunter Duette rudder, then primer, a couple of coats of enamel topcoat then anti fouling on top of that. If there’s any sign of splitting when you’ve stripped the paint off make sure you get epoxy glue into the cracks as well. Cracking in the seams is very common with all these similar Hunter rudders.