| Blisters
on the rudder blade and a new rudder
2009-10-02 A call to our re-seller and a service technician came out to check the boat. After scraping off the paint layer by layer he was able to decide that there were two layers of primer that had not stuck together. So the rudder had to be sanded and repainted. Covered by the guarantee off course.
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 Starboard side of the rudder blade full of blisters. |
 Close-up of some of the blisters. |
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2010-05-15 As the date shows, it took over 7 months before the rudder was fixed. Our original plan was to have the boat in water 23rd of April but it was not possible due to delays created by reseller/climate/and pressured schedule for the repair team. The day after the rudder was repainted we found the rudder in the following condition. As the picture shows, there are several lighter areas. |
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 The paint had cracked during the night probably due to the changes in the weather. It was still quite cold during the night.
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 The cracks were found in several places on the rudders and on both sides. After calling the service technicians, who were already on their way back home to the other side of Sweden, we agreed that we will repaint the rudder with the rest of the paint they had left by the boat. We were told that it was only "stretch marks" in the paint due to temperature changes and a new layer of paint would solve the aesthetic issue. |
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This is how the
rudder looked after our repainting. Why the colour was this time
much blacker is unclear. But we were finally able to launch the
boat and all went fine.
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| 2010-10-11 It was a very disappointing end to the boating season when we saw that the rudder was even in worse shape as it was in the spring. We were really not prepared to have to go through all problem with our dealer again.
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you compare these two pictures you can see that there are almost
no blisters in the areas that were fixed in the spring. Below
you find more pictures of how bad the damage was this year.
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2011-05-02 As the yard did not find any reasonable explanation to my rudder problem they decided to replace it with a new one. We had heard from some other 370 owners that they had lengthened their rudders so we asked the shipyard if we could have a long rudder as compensation for all troubles and they supplied one that is used on the Hanse 400 series.
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 1. Here you can see the old rudder is quite short and has a different shape compared to the replacement shown below. You can also see the upper part of the rudder is much closer to the hull. |
 2. The old rudder is removed. |
 3. The bearings looked fine and not many barnacles either. |
4. There was no antifouling paint applied from the ship yard as
you can see. Neither had we applied any after the delivery but
it looks not that bad anyway. |
5. The new rudder had little bit more antifouling on the top of
the rudder blade. |
 6. As said before, the rudder comes from the Hanse 400 series. |
 7. The top fitting is little bit different compared to the original rudder. |
8. The top is stamped with the production date 2011-03-14. As
you can see the top is different than the original one and
therefore we needed a new emergency tiller arm. Unfortunately
the tiller arm is not constructed for 370 so you have to use it
backwards which works fine if you have a platform in the stern
to stand on whilst steering. |
 9. The rudder is longer, more rounded in the back edge and the bottom is angled instead of being straight. |
10. It takes two guys to handle it. Notice the ditch that has
been dug in order to be able to put the rudder in place. |
11. First time right is always the best so here we are digging
the hard soil with nothing but a piece of wood. |
 12. Almost there... |
 13. And there it is before it is hoisted up and locked with bolts. |
 14. In place and as you can see, there is not much air between the tip of the rudder and the ground. |
