Its bad for ocean and blue water cruises. My boat is like this. Basically you are relying on one or two thru bolts and a tiller for your boats steering and since it is above the water line hard wave action from the stern will slam it hard over repeatedly loosening this connection.
If your a coastal cruiser no problem- if you want to do long trips over blue water it is not a good set up.

 

Its bad for ocean and blue water cruises.

You are not getting proper responses...

I have not heard that an outboard rudder affects sailing capabilities or trim. I have over 40K ocean miles with an outboard rudder and it can not get any simpler.

• One less hole under the boat
• Simple arrangement, simple to fix
• Easy if mounting a wind-vane or autopilot
• Etc, Etc.

Unfortunately when I was looking for my next boat with an outboard ruder I had to compromise as they are hard to come by at 30 feet plus, but my preference is still valid.

 

I know that the Hake Seaward ultra-shoal draft boats have an external rudder like that ... even with wheel steering. But, that is obviously so that it can eliminate draft when desired. Even their 32' and 46' foot models can practically pull up onto a beach with their centerboard up.

 

The largest problem I see is not about the use of it on the boat.. it's, well it just seems like way too many people buy boats with the rudder missing! Every week it seems there's a "looking for rudder for a -----name of boat here----

 

Ok, I had never thought of that! Do they get stolen?

The mounts seem to be very sturdy and oversized.
I sail in Denmark, where the furthest away you can get from shore at any point is 12 nm so definately coastal use.

Any other downsides? Otherwise I still like it.

 

I like transom mounted rudders - they are simple, and when properly mounted - very reliable. The only downside tends to be weather helm when sailing to weather, but if the tiller is long enough that is not a big problem.

 

I don't quite understand the part about weather helm.
Will the mount of rudder on the transom give the boat more/harder weatherhelm than if not ?

 

limits where you can put an outboard. Generally gives more usable cockpit room if you don't have a wheel. For shoal boats popping up the rudder and raising the centerboard and get into thin water.

 

There are some larger boats that use them. And some boats that are Norwegian inspired have huge tiller and rudder that follows the curve of the stern down. Very very nautical.

 

Or alternatively to make it easier to steer, just balance your rudder some, ie. have some of the rudder forward of the pivot axis. This is the only real reason that they are harder to steer, all (probably?) spade rudders are balanced to some degree which is what makes a tiller steered boat with a spade rudder have a lighter feel.

Weather helm is a product of sail placement, trim, and hull form to some degree. There isn't an inherent reason why a transom hung rudder will display more weather helm, it is just that most of them are not balanced to any real degree so have a harder feel. And they are more susceptible to following seas banging them around but not a whole heck of a lot more.

So KrissKross, if you ever build a new rudder, balance it by putting some of the area forward of the pivot and you'll be amazed how much more lively it feels. Then make it a nice NACA 0012 foil and you'll also be amazed at the low speed responsiveness.

 

Weather helm is a function of how the rudder is hung. If the extended line through the center of the hinges goes through the effective center of of the rudder there will be no weather helm.

This is difficult to do with some hull designs. A balancing tab on a skeg or keel mounted rudder would be a good crab pot catcher.

 

Weather helm is a function of how the rudder is hung. If the extended line through the center of the hinges goes through the effective center of of the rudder there will be no weather helm.

This statement is just wrong. No recognition of the how the center of effort of the sails, keel area, etc. affects weather helm. It has almost nothing to do with the relationship between the center of the rudder area and the hinge location.

 

Not exactly, a HEAVY helm which is CAUSED by weather helm is a product of what you said. Even a perfectly balanced rudder can still have weather helm, which is the boat turning into the wind. The placement of the rudder can affect weather helm, but not the actual balancing part of it.

 

Thanks a lot for all the useful information.
It doesnt have a skeg, but a little of the rudder area is in front of the pivot-axis.
You can see it on the drawings here:
NORDSHIP 808 sailboat specifications and details on sailboatdata.com

 

Nice boats!

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a transom-mounted rudder for racing or cruising, coastal or ocean voyages - and whoever said there was knows nothing of what they speak..

There are major advantages - like less holes in the boat and the ability to repair or jury-rig something without having to haul the boat out to do so - and perhaps some minor disadvantages if you're hanging an outboard on the back also, but from a performance point of view it makes absolutely no difference at all... it simply comes down to personal preference and the abilities of the yacht's designer.

 

my parents grampian had a transom hung rudder. It never got in the way of the outboard

 

I too don't understand how a transom hung rudder relates to weather helm

Surely that is a function of the force exerted by the sails and the resistance of the keel and rudder.

Putting the rudder further back on the transom increases it's leaverage compared to an inset rudder, so the force required to move the tiller should be less. I think anyway.

Calling BobPerry clean up required on .............................................................

 

Thank you all very much for the input, it was of great help.
I will allow my self to summarize the different opinions, if another kind soul has the same question, and comes across this thread.

1. It is an advantage with one less hole in the boat to worry about
2. Provided that the rudder-mounts are properly sized (as with any ruddertype), it is a completely safe setup
3. A lot of very seaworthy (and "blue water") boats has this setup
4. Weather-helm is not related to the way the rudder is mounted
5. It might be a challenge to mount an outboard motor if so desired
6. A lage wave crashing from behind, could induce higher stress to the ruddermounts

 

6. A lage wave crashing from behind, could induce higher stress to the ruddermounts

That's a fallacy based on the stern supposedly protecting the rudder from behind. Unless half your stern is dragging in the water, a large wave crashing from behind will put just as much stress on an inboard rudder except that the stresses aren't visible from the cockpit and are transmitted into the rudder tube instead (not "felt" at the tiller so much).

Because it isn't protected by the stern, a transom-mounted rudder is certainly more likley to be damaged if you're not careful whilst reversing into a marina pen or when launching off a trailer (in which case you'd damage your stern instead), but, as ST pointed out above, for most people the advantages of being able to more easily fix a transom-mounted rudder outweigh any apparent disadvantages created by the location.

 

7. In an anchorage or marina it is also a bit more vulnerable to getting bashed by another boat, et cetera.

8. If you pay slip/moorage fees based on the length of your boat it will cost you a few more bucks/month.

 

Al my designs have out board rudders as I consider it the only intelligent place to put a rudder on an offshore cruiser. As the Pardys pointed out "They put rudders on the back of a plane instead of the middle for good reason."It drastically simplifies self steering and inside steering, or autohelm steering via a trimtab on it's trailing edge, making such systems exponentially stronger than any of the options available for inboard rudders.
I see no real advantages for an inboard rudder on an offshore boat ,and can't understand why so many designers make that obvious mistake.
Lack of offshore cruising experience among them may be one reason.

 

I was reading about Black Feathers the other day, the Cal 20 that successfully sailed the solo transpac in 2008.

His rudder failed a good ways out (fiberglass fatigue, supposedly) and he was able to replace it easily with some wrangling. He pulled the broken rudder out of the gudgeons and was able to wrestle the old wooden one back into place, allowing him to continue on as normal. The process didn't sound easy, but it was accomplished without a jury rig or serious issue.

Granted, the Cal 20 is basically a big dinghy and most of the larger boats I've looked at with outboard rudders would be substantially more challenging to repair at sea if something failed (e.g. Flicka, Westsail). It still seems to me that, even with those boats that have massive rudders in place off the transom, if something failed, the repair would be easier than dealing with something run through the hull.

It's also easier to inspect, which is a big plus to me.

 

The outboard hung rudder can have one serious fault: at higher speed and when a boat is well heeled over such a rudder can easily 'ventilate' or 'suck air down along the lower pressure side of the rudder' and the rudder will/can lose ALL control depending on the amount of ventilation.

Couple this with a helmsman who doesnt understand 'weather helm' requiring more rudder angle to overcorrect for adverse helm; include the vulnerability to 'ventilate' ........ and you can expect an unexpected 'pirouette' / unexpected rounding up as a worst case scenario in your future.

Stern hung rudders can easily 'ventilate'.
Totally submerged rudders have great difficulty in 'ventilating'.
Advantage - submerged rudders

 

The outboard hung rudder can have one serious fault: at higher speed and when a boat is well heeled over such a rudder can easily 'ventilate' or 'suck air down along the lower pressure side of the rudder' and the rudder will/can lose ALL control depending on the amount of ventilation.

Couple this with a helmsman who doesnt understand 'weather helm' requiring more rudder angle to overcorrect for adverse helm; include the vulnerability to 'ventilate' ........ and you can expect an unexpected 'pirouette' / unexpected rounding up as a worst case scenario in your future.

Stern hung rudders can easily 'ventilate'.
Totally submerged rudders have great difficulty in 'ventilating'.
Advantage - submerged rudders

That's complete rubbish, Rich.. C'mon, surely you know that.

Any modern boat that is is "well heeled" will have enough of the rudder exposed to 'ventilate' and potentially broach very soon thereafter if the helmsman isn't careful. You don't have to compete in many races or look in many books to see that.

If a single-rudder boat is so badly set up that the rudder doesn't "ventilate" to some extent at full heel, then dragging the tail around a racecourse won't win you any races either.

 

5 centuries of explorers, ocean crossers, circumnavigators pirates, privateers, fleet admirals and conquistadors found that transom hung rudders worked just fine. Ships lost usually weren't lost due to the rudder design, but to every damn thing else.
The upside of a transom hung rudder is that there's one less below waterline intrusion, and any repairs are much, much easier to effect.

 

Again, thanks a lot everyone, I'm now very confident that I am going to like this rudder, and the missing hole in the boat

Regarding the mounts, I took this photo, and I believe they are quite sturdy for a 26' boat? There are wide backplates on the inside.

I've talked to a few owners that have had this kind of boat for many years, and no one have had trouble, or heard of trouble with the rudder.

 

You have nothing to worry about! The hardware is plenty strong enough. Relax and enjoy your boat!

 

I think you will have many happy years using that rudder as long as you keep an eye on it.. like anything else on a boat. Do the Maintance and repairs and she will keep you happily afloat for years.

I am a big fan of Cat boats. Those veseels have -huge- "barndoors" for rudders usually. With them you cannot just hard over the rudder to tack, but should do a more calm arch through the wind. With a rudder that size, it does not just stall, but turns into a brake

 

A friend said he heard that outboard rudders were more prone to failure, but only those on double enders. I notice that most double enders have the top pintle well below the rail, leaving the top portion of the rudder unsupported, and a bend and a long circuitous route from the top pintle to the end of the tiller.This could be the cause of the problem, as transom sterned boats dont have this problem, and have the top pintle at the top of the transom . It is yet another case of style over substance, easily rectified by putting a filler piece in, to straighten the stern, and put a top pintle at deck level in.
How would such a rudder with a deck level pintle be more vulenerable to damage than an expensive servo pendulum windvane hung on the transom? It seems such a rudder, with a trimtab self steering would be comparatively bulletporoof, and if the vane rig was built out of sch 40 SS pipe, it would be easier to straighten out if bent, anywhere, with no fancy tools. With the bottom of a rudder raked foreward ,it would be more inclined to pull water up it rather than pull air down it, altho anti cavitation plates at the surface ,similar to those used on outboard motors would be an option.
One could easily double the size of gudgeons and pintles with no penalty for doing so.

 

I had a rudder split a few miles offshore. (I had just gotten the boat, and there was obviously some damage which had occurred when the previous owner had it. He told me he had hit a rock but I did not see any damage when I looked at it.) I pulled my rudder into the cockpit, shot some screws through braces, and put the thing back on.

That's tough to do without a transom-hung rudder.

 

never had anything else

easier to repair and to spot problems

outboard in a well

perfecto

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