An overview of rudders
A different overview of rudder design
Why rudders break
Rudders break with disturbing frequency and it is often nothing to do with corrosion. Most rudders break because they are not designed to be strong enough. I have been trying to educate yacht designers for over 40 years to change their approach to assessing rudder strength, with only limited success. The paper below provides a comprehensive technical explanation as to why so many of them are still getting it wrong. The final version of the paper was published in the International Journal of Small Craft Technology in 2020.