Rudder
The story as understood, was that the rudder had been dropped twice for work. As we peel back the paint the rudder might have a different description of events. The most common reason for dropping the rudder is water intrusion. In this case, when the rudder is removed one face is cut away to scoop out the wet foam core. The rudder is dried out and the steel is inspected and pasivated. Then the rudder is reassembled by filling the shell with expanding foam, shaping and glassing.
As described in the diagram above the steel frame is encapsulated in fiberglass mat and polyester resin before the foam is added for shaping. So if water had intruded past the outer shell it may have never reached the steel.
After removing most of the paint we did not see any evidence that the rudder had been openened. There are several blister repairs but no definite seam on one side or the other.
Tapping a 1/4" pipe thread opening ion the fiberglass near the bottom of the rudder allowed attaching a vacuum pump. It took several days to remove all the water from the rudder.
After drying out the rudder a two-part polyerethane foam was injected into the opening. There was a significant void in this area. A full 8.5 ounce cartridge (before expanding) was pumped in. Hopefully, this will satisfy the surveyors water meter.
Finally the opening is repaired. The rudder is faired and primed. We will check the rudder after a year or two and see how it does.
Finally the rudder was faired with an epoxy puddy and primed for bottom paint.
Eventually this rudder will need to be rebuilt or replaced. For now we will check for moisture each time we haul out. Also, rather than patching the tapped drain hole we installed a stanless steel pipe plug so that we can attach the vacuum pump if needed.