Anchor well done, rudder started

Here's the finished flange for the aft bunktop, that I did last week. Turned out pretty good, IMO:

I also finished up the anchor well blank. The outer laminate was easy to do. Right after I did the inner laminate, I used a simple jig to try to let it cure to the final dimensions as accurately as possible:

I'm taking a shot at constructing my rudder from foam. I vacuum bagged two 3/4" sheets together to make a blank; this picture shows the rudder blank with the rough outlines traced in, plus some HD blocks curing in front of it, and finally you can also see part of the trimmed-up anchor well off to the right:

Here's the HD inserts curing in the rudder blank:

I'm experimenting with polyurethane glue here for the first time. I can see it has some definite advantages, especially the foaming/space-filling ability.

Here's me wrapping the rudder insert with carbon fiber:

(Yeah, I grew a winter beard - it's a lot grayer than the last time I had one. My wife doesn't like it though; I may have to trade its removal for a new power tool or something. :))

All finished with the carbon wrap, but before peel ply:

I deviated slightly from the plans; my insert has two+ full wraps of carbon from top to bottom. This was mainly because I thought it would be easier this way than messing with separate pieces of carbon.

Wrapping the insert was easier than I expected. I coated the insert with bog before I started to wrap it, this seemed to help the carbon to "stick" to it. I also put two full turns of peel ply around it, followed by plastic, followed by duct tape in several places.

This morning after I unwrapped the insert (not much leverage for yanking on the peelply...had to use pliers to get a grip) I was very pleased with how the carbon stayed nice and tight around the insert. Here's the unwrapped insert sitting next to its home-to-be in the rudder blank:

Last, I used Grant's trick of using part of the scrap foam from the slot cutout as a spacer, to get the insert centered within the blank. I bogged the insert into place rather than use the poly glue:

Next steps on the rudder will be cutting out templates for the foil sections, then shaping.