Wheres My Rudder?

[pigslo]

Unfortunately you cannot find out how your boat behaves without a rudder unless you remove the rudder. Just turning the tiller or wheel loose would not be the same as no rudder at all. Short of sailing offshore where you have the room and revoving the rudder and replacing the stock with a plug, you won't know unless it has happened to you. Good thread for a thread starter being their first post. Livened things up a bit and
I learned from just reading the opinions.
pigslo

[Michael Poole]

Wheres My Rudder?

Lost mine 18 miles off the Outter Banks in a 45 knot blow. Learned then not to trust production rudders. It took me two weeks to make another which sailed to the Bahamas in June of 2000. Still have the same rudder and it's just as strong as the day I made it.

Ok, enough said...

Loosing a rudder is probably the worst with the exception of loosing a mast.
The easiest way to compensate for lost steering is to simply create drag past the stern. Simply put things like a sea anchor, old tire (sometimes not easy to come by at sea), anchor not dragging, extra sail on a line, bucket on a rope. Well you get the idea, and if any one of these don’t work just add to your stern line.

By creating drag you will be able to steer the boat. Takes a little getting use to and does require a little work.


Capt'n Mike (NORA - 1984 O'Day 222)

[RCurtis99]

Originally Posted by scott_sale

A few summers ago I was finishing a five day coastal navigation lesson with two other students on a 41 foot production vessel. Suffice to say we were very surprised when we lost steerage and 2/3 of our rudder floated way(we learned later it was a poor layup at the factory). Being five miles from land and ten miles from our destination, what would you have recommended to return the vessel safely?

A well found vessel should be controlled with sails alone or in combination with your engine in the event of rudder failure. Given that the boat is 5 miles off shore, danger is not imminent. If you have a tender, and the tender has an outboard, the first option is to ship the tender and tie it alongside the vessel and then use the tender and its engine to steer the vessel, while using the vessel's own engine for forward thrust.
If you do not have a tender, then the vessel can be steered with the sails alone. Close hauling is not feasible, but close reaching, reaching and running can be achieved using sail trim to guide the vessel.
In either case, a Pan, Pan, Pan call to Coast Guard notifying them that you are navigating with difficulty is recommended.
In my local waters, C-Tow can also be called to render assistance. This would be well advised if you were in a shipping lane.

[arvin555]

Have only lost a rudder while sailing a dinghy. I couldn't sail it properly just by sail trim, so sails went down and waited for a tow. My opinions and comments:

1. I too didn't think that it is possible to sail without any rudder at all, HOWEVER, I learned something new from this topic... that I should try using drogues and other stuff to counteract weatherhelm, that might work. Nice tip! This was the first time I heard of this, even after checking out "sailing without rudder" in the net and in some sailing books. Seriously. (I've only 16 years sailing experience)

2. On my 33 foot racer cruiser, we have a piece of plywood with U bolts, dedicated Emergency rudder, the spin pole is used with it.

3. On my friend's 45 footer when we tried a bigger version of my system, it failed, really difficult to steer (even with just engine), so we ended up just buying a pair of drogues.

In my humble opinion, those who say that asking for a tow or anchoring when near shore has the best idea. When out offshore or in blue water, one has more time to experiment and juri rig, but in any case the best advice is to advice the coastguard of your situation first before trying to find a fix.

Lastly, my co owner who has his own boat in Japan had a big spare rudder built out of wood and FG, and made gudgeon and pintels on the rudder and on the transom of his 30 footer. So that if the primary rudder breaks, he just goes and attaches his transom mounted emergency rudder! Cool, but the E rudder is heavy and takes up a lot of space

TTFN
Arvin

[hoganc]

one of the storage locker doors on my boat to build a makeshift rudder. Granted it would be smaller and inefficient, but I think it would at least give me the ability to point the boat.

[Redbeard-Arrrrrrr]

When boat shopping I discovered many boats with "hollow" sounding rudders (I'm an Ultralight guy so the boats tend not to be as well made) but also, I experienced it with our 1975 build Northern 29 (long since retired)

If water gets into the generally easily-rotted-by-water foam or balsa core of a rudder (or centerboard or keel) it will undermine the strength of the unit since the fiberglass acting with the core is where the strength comes from.

After reading the thread I have two key observations:

1) I'd never buy a boat that handled so sloppily that it couldn't be sailed without a rudder (as part of the Canadian Yachting Association levels I got as a kid we had to sail without a rudder, backwards, etc. and we felt we learned so much about fine sail trim for racing that we purposely did it for a few days in a row) If you say your boat can't be either you can't (need more practice) or you need a new boat because you're is very poorly designed or rigged - a poorly balanced boat just isn't ever going to be fast - and a slow boat is only a good place for a nap - IMO

2) you need to - at minimum - inspect your foils annually, with a mallet, if you don't know what you're doing hire a surveyor and watch and learn. I can't tell you how many times I've walked through marine yards and seen tell tail bulges on rudders

3) There's nothing wrong with asking for assistance when you feel over your head (and assistance can be safely rendered) but there is something right about doing your best to ensure you won't need to make the call

[sailingdog]

Of course, sailing without a rudder on a larger boat is a bit different than doing so on a dinghy. It can be done, but many boats won't respond very well, unless you really know the boat well. Fin keeled boats are going to react faster, since they'll tend to pivot around the keel, literally, since there's no rudder.

If you lose your rudder, you have three options.

1) Sail as best you can without it, by balancing the sails and using a drogue. The drogue is probably most effective downwind.

2) Call for help and get assistance, whether it is mechanical assistance in jury- rigging a replacement rudder or getting a tow to port.

3) Drop the hook and anchor out until you can jury- rig something.

BTW, IMHO, dropping the hook, provided you have decent ground tackle and are in water shallow enough to do so safely is one of the best options for many emergencies. Rushing in to fix the problem, without taking a few minutes to take a look at what you should really do is generally one of the worst things you can do. As one of my EMT colleagues used to say, "We don't have time to hurry, we've only got time to do it right." I find that applies to a lot more than just first aid.

[Cahill]

According to old Ben Franklin, "an ounce of prevention. . . ."

I played the "what-if-I-lost-the-rudder" scenario when I chose a steering vane for Xanadu, my 12 ton sloop. I chose Hydrovane because its rudder would serve in a pinch -- it has a handy little tiller post -- and was acceptable to the transpac race committee.

I hope I'll never have to put the Hydrovane to the test. But if it comes to that, I'm confident that this little ounce of prevention will turn out to have been money well spent.

[captainchetco]

I have expermented steering with the sails on my 41' Gulfstar Ketch. It can be done in a gross manner, but not in a restricted area like a harbor. Given the story, I would probably try to sail steer to near the home harbor, and call sea tow there. If possible to sail steer into the harbor, I would tow with the dingy once inside. By the way, I have found that to tow my big boat with the dinghy, you have to tie the tow line to the dinghy motor.

[austennn]

5 miles off the Florida Keys we hit a semi submerged object hard and it bent the port rudder shaft and pushed the rudder back and up into the hull. I still think it was the state of Florida but the hazardous location is not on any charts. After a few quick checks we found that we were taking on a small amount of water at the hull/rudder post seal but were not holed. The real issue was that the rudder was frozen. We were able to get moving again using differential power to steer until an unrelated engine failure killed the port engine. (fuel filter/ pump issue). The water was a bit unsettled that day. When things go bad they usually do in 2s and 3s. Still not worried but getting cocerned we disconnected the rudder linkage and continued straight into shore on the starboard engine and rudder all the time thinking what is the the next move if we lose the starboard drivetrain. Start the dingy anyone.