EPO Rudders? Orange?

A friend of mine has a set of orange rudders, which appear to be for a H14/H16/H18, but they currently have H16 tiller arms attached to them. They are orange in color and are obviously some form of glass with a very hard gelcoat surface. The weird thing is, they don't look or feel like the normal fiberglass rudders that Hobie sells currently -I guess because of the gelcoat. They are very heavy...but very stiff.

Are these EPO rudders? Or maybe they are something Hobie did with a special edition H14/H16/H18 to match hull color? I had heard EPO rudders were black (never seen one), but I have standard fibergass rudders on my boat and these are unlike mine. Two other sailors have looked at them also and no one has seen anything like them.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Andrej

They are certainly not EPO rudders. They only came in black.

A number of people were making and selling aftermarket rudders in the 70's and 80's. You could get them with colored gel (including orange) to match your boat. Most of them fell by the wayside when the bottom dropped out of the market in the late 80's / early 90's.

Sounds like you've got a set of these rudders.

That makes sense and thought it could be as much. Thanks for the quick reply.

Andrej

Andrej,

Those rudders are now on my H21 and they are perfectly balanced. All of my rudder helm has disappeared.

How was the Honey Moon?

Capt. Penn

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