Rudder Sanded... ready to fair!

Another cold evening working on Mayhem tonight. A couple hours of orbital sanding and my rudder is ready for fairing... I was actually quite surprised by the condition its in. The surface is already nearly perfectly smooth and shows very little waviness or imperfection. Fairing the rudder shouldn't be too tough... I hope.

When I got down to the very bottom of the rudder, there was moisture seeping through the paint and primer that I was sanding off. This is a bit concerning as I don't know where it came from. I am hoping that the inside of my rudder isn't rotten or water logged. How would I fix that? Then again, how would I even tell without cutting my rudder open (something that I don't plan to do). Perhaps I'll drill a few small holes in it to see if anything comes out.

This could end up being one of those small projects that turns into a big fiasco... stay tuned.

I'm still going to take the rudder off and do some finish sanding by hand, but I was able to get most of it done while the rudder was still on the boat. As you can see, it is in surprisingly good shape.