Hi everyone on this side of the forum. Not new to the site as I have been loitering around the windsurfing area for years, and while still windsurfing a bit I have decided to get back to my roots and enter into the world of trailer sailor ownership as of 6 months or so ago, having sailed and owned various kinds of off the beach boats and sailed on many others up until some years ago

So having bought a well maintained Sonata 6.7 with many recent upgrades, (am loving the boat BTW) we have made a few alterations ourselves such as some new LED nav lights, switchboard, new bunk cushions and odds and ends, I now want to do something about the swing rudder box which I don't like. The rudder in question is a sonata 8 item, beautiful foil shape and steers great, but has other issues, as opposed to the one built by the original owner, which is a beautifully made all timber box tiller and blade, but steers like crap and stalls badly the moment any weather helm presents.

So I have a couple of options as I see it, 1) make a new timber blade for the original, although the box isn't very wide which means any new blade will be a little skinny in its profile, part of the current blades problem, and therefore pull the box apart and widen it too, or, 2) make a new box and tiller for the sonata 8 blade. Now the issues with the 8's ruder box is the pull up and down arrangement is not so flash, and needs some alterations, the castings are prone to corrosion and cracks (1 has been welded up previously) and the tiller and box are WAY overweight, so I figure if I go with option 2, I will end up with a better outcome.




While the image above is not of my rudder, I searched the image out, mine is identical, complete with same welded up crack :).

What I'm interested in is some ideas from people on how to make something similar in design but lightweight, without going into composites (probably an all alloy/ aluminum build but am open to options). I'm fairly handy with the tools being a chippy and confident to do it, but just don't have the experience of having done it before and am hoping someone(s) here may have some ideas on design.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers