Lost rudder in the pacific, outside Marshall

[atoll]

watched the video,my comment to hilma below.
what struck me is why they don't have TWO nice shiny rudders to match the TWO nice shiny steering wheels.............

"i think it is JP3 in sable de olonne france who make the rudders for these boats,best get your order in soon as if they don't have one in stock waiting time is about 3 months if they have to fabricate from scratch,cost for a dufor gibsea 42 rudder of similar design was about 6500 euro.
easy to fit in the water if you weight the bottom of the rudder and make a pin to fit inside the rudder stock to secure a rope that is led through the rudder post into the boat to pull the rudder into the housing
.
ASIS 1018 low carbon steel is the type of steel rod used for these rudders, stainless is too soft best get one from the factory in france rather than trying to fabricate one locally.

lucky it is not cyclone season till june so you have plenty of time"

[Chris Robb]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

Check 53 minutes in to the vid.....

Never mind the spare ... I'd be putting the money towards a new rudder with a solid stock.. that looks like thin wall tube filled with resin....

On a par with a Hunter rudder I came across on a beach once....

Thats a real cheapskate rudder shaft - I really dont believe what I am seeing.

My dear old 40ft westerly has 1 massive shaft of solid stainless steel supported on the deckhead.

Lesson to be learned - get a decent rudder in the first place - shame on Jeneau.

[Tony Roberts]

It’s unfair to give a particular brand of sailboat a bad rap just because rudders are falling off. Every offshore sailor has a choice about their chosen offshore vessel. Spade rudders are simply NOT designed to be abused and stay intact. The shafts suffer HUGE lateral bending in ocean conditions and the shafts no matter how sturdy will ultimately fail due to metal fatigue.
Go offshore with at least a rudder that is hung on a sturdy skeg.
Your choice sailors!

[Normanskier]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Here is a nice description and test of drogue steering with the rudder removed.
https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2...ipment-tested/

Awesome video. Clearly it would be a good idea to practice on your own boat. Not sure how many miles you could get if offshore due to chafe, etc. But this debunks the comments that you cannot steer with a drought. Thank you.
Norman

[B23iL23]

rubbish

Originally Posted by Tony Roberts

...
Go offshore with at least a rudder that is hung on a sturdy skeg.
Your choice sailors!

[kmacdonald]

Originally Posted by Tony Roberts

It’s unfair to give a particular brand of sailboat a bad rap just because rudders are falling off.

Are you kidding me?????????????

Last time I checked, rudders were near the top of the "must have" items.

[Fi2010]

Originally Posted by Tillsbury

The yachting monthly video (youtube) on jury steering concluded that warps or drogues were a bit useless. A jury rudder worked surprisingly well, although they used a pivoting rudder rather than the substantially more complex and delicate rotating rudder used in the above video.

World Sailing and U.S. Sailing accept storm drogues for alternative emergency steering.

Dave Houston brings home the point how well a drogue can steer a disabled boat. Name of article “Catamaran Runs Over Log Damaging both Rudders”.

Coho Ho Ho Rally co-founder, Doug Lombard, deploys the Galerider and Shark Drogue on YouTube. The test video is titled “Emergency Steering Drogue Training”. Proves how two different approaches to using a drogue for emergency steering can work.

[Fi2010]

Originally Posted by thinwater

All you have to do is BEND a rudder or break steering gear, and you'll wish you had a plan. I began researching this after bending a rudder.


I'm a big fan of drogue steering for 4 reasons:
* It is safe even in crazy weather. A single person can rig it, in big waves, in a few minutes (with practice). You can install it in weather where working at the transom is impractical.

* It is easy to carry.
* It can often be rigged with stuff you have on board, but ONLY if you...
* Practice!! Since it is free, there is no rational excuse for not practicing drogue steering. First try it in ~ 10 knots, then move up to 20+.




I've tested many commercial drogues; I like the Galerider best for this purpose, but the Shark and Seabrake are also very good.


Once I sailed my trimaran 30 miles across the Chesapeake and back, with a set-up that took less than 5 minutes to rig:
* Spin sheets to make an adjustable bridle.
* Suspended main anchor under large fender. Boats with less beam (leverage) might require 2-3 fender/anchor combinations.

The anchor must be under the fender to settle it in the water to make drag.

No question, a commercial drogue would be better in rough weather, but don't let that stop you from testing out this important bit of seamanship. Steering failure may be the most common cause of abandonment.

As a writer for the media, have you considered publishing details about other commercial steering drogue options besides the Galerider?

The Galerider method includes many steps. Lengthy rode, chain weight, and amidiships connection points (usually with blocks); requiring a sailor to bend the bridle before it’s connected to sheet winches.

The Shark method can perform with a short bridle attached directly to sheet winches. Additionally, there’s no chain weight requirement for the storm drogue so you can pull the drogue right next to the boat. This can turn the boat faster and overall make deployment easier. Something to think about.

Technically, you can use a similar Shark setup with a car tire in calmer seas. As the weather picks up you would likely have to add chain to the tire. Have you deployed a short bridle without chain weight added to the commercial drogue? You might be surprised by the results.

Your illustration does have one mistake. The Galerider bridle averages 50 to 120 ft. Your current bridle lengths of 10 to 40 ft. in the illustration are actually for the Shark Drogue.

[Fi2010]

Originally Posted by Normanskier

Awesome video. Clearly it would be a good idea to practice on your own boat. Not sure how many miles you could get if offshore due to chafe, etc. But this debunks the comments that you cannot steer with a drought. Thank you.
Norman

Yes, the Michael Keyworth video is good.

There’s an error with Keyworth’s deployment instruction. The bridle wasn’t secured properly so it slides underneath the hull as the boat turns (5 minute mark in the video). In rough seas the bridle can easily tangle in the prop. If your steering is broken with the rudder intact, then the bridle can jam in the gap located between the top of the rudder and the hull. We know this because of too many prop and rudder tangles with rode during field tests.

Use stoppers or snatch blocks to stabilize the bridle near the transom. This should help resolve the initial error with Keyworth’s instruction. Technically you could use a spar, but this requires a lot of setup.

The good news is course changes will likely be minimal. Especially if there's an issue with the boat.

[B00B00]

Pretty sure it's just a fiberglass rudder stock. Same as we have in the beneteau 50.
I pulled mine out twice to check it during our trip from europe to nz. Once in Spain and again in Panama.
We broke the tiller/lever arm for the autopilot ram and flogged the hole in the stock out a bit as it was no longer clamped firmly around the stock but instead loading directly on the oil., After fixing it in the Galapagos we had to fill and redrill it.
To be honest I was never that confident in the whole steering setup which was the reason I pulled it all apart twice in 1.5 years.
But 16,000nm on an already 10 year old boat with no big issues so I guess it was fine, and in fact was a lovely fast, comfortable boat.

[saltfree]

Hydrovane. That is all. Self-steering during normal navigation, and a ready backup in case of main rudder failure. Must have.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Don C L

So I am curious, how many folks, with any rudder configuration but especially spade rudders, have a provision for a spare rudder, apart from the windvane? Got some photos?

Truth of the matter is that we did (do) not have a provision for a spare rudder.

I designed one using a cassette on pintles and gudgeons on the back of my heavily reinforced Monitor frame. Upon losing the rudder I would install the cassette and drop my spare (smallish) blade down through the cassette. A bell crank set-up on the cassette with lines to my tiller, or winches if the tiller was not usable, would probably get me to port if I kept the sail area to a minimum.

The spare blade would have been about 30% size of my actual rudder and stowed under a bunk.

It seemed like a good plan, especially since a sister ship lost their rudder 600 miles into a cross Pacific passage and had to be towed back by the Mexican Navy. No jury rig worked for them.

But in the end I never got around to doing it. Instead I had the existing rudder tube and structure massively reinforced and I watched carefully for signs of corrosion at the rudder tube/rudder blade joint.

[wingssail]

Originally Posted by Tony Roberts

...Spade rudders are simply NOT designed to be abused and stay intact. The shafts suffer HUGE lateral bending in ocean conditions and the shafts no matter how sturdy will ultimately fail due to metal fatigue.
Go offshore with at least a rudder that is hung on a sturdy skeg.
Your choice sailors!

Do you have any figures on how soon that will happen? Because we've already got 40 years, 500 races, and well over 55,000 miles on ours so I wonder if it is just about to fail?

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by saltfree

Hydrovane. That is all. Self-steering during normal navigation, and a ready backup in case of main rudder failure. Must have.

The hydrovane solves both the storage and the setup in heavy seas backup rudder problems. It has one significant downside. If you loose your main rudder due to impact, say with a log or a whale, it is likely to take the hydrovane with it.

[kmacdonald]

The hydrovane is limited to the size of boat it will work on.

I don't really know the percentage of rudder failures caused by striking an object vs corrosion/fatigue failures and the hydrovane as a solution would depend on that somewhat. I think I'd be happy with it as a precaution though.