<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">
Steve,<div><br></div><div>It is stainless. It is prone to corrosion. If you've got enough to look (even "look") like a hole all the way through, my judgement would be a new rudder sooner rather than later. Without an expensive exam there's no way to know how far things have gone.</div><div><br></div><div>And you're right, they will fail when you need them most because that's usually when they're being asked to steer in high winds and currents. </div><div><br></div><div>Pat</div><div>ex-Elaine<br><div><br><div><div>On Jun 10, 2009, at 8:10 AM, Steve wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma">The rudder post is a Stainless steel pipe and it appears to be prone to crevice corrosion. </font></span><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma">I just pulled mine and cleaned up the post with naval jelly. While </font></span><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma">I still have a lot of pipe left, the crevice corrosion was </font></span><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma">about to pop a hole the pipe. which would allow saltwater into the post and into the rudder. I have decided to clean, fill with epoxy, surface the pipe, and then start a policy annual inspection.</font></span></div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma"></font></span> </div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma"> </font><div dir="ltr" align="left"><font size="4" face="Tahoma"><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma">Perhaps all these older rudders ought to be pulled </font></span><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma">and inspected annually. I suspect t</font></span></font><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma">hey will tend fail when you need them the most.</font></span></div></span></div> <div dir="ltr" align="left"><span class="390354514-10062009"><font size="4" face="Tahoma"> </font></span></div><br> <div dir="ltr" lang="en-us" class="OutlookMessageHeader" align="left"> <br></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></body></html>