You Have Lost Your Rudder

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Khagan1227

If you can't afford an emergency rudder, I think you'd need to have something that can be rigged quickly, and in the dark.

That's an interesting perspective. I've always looked at it differently, that I couldn't afford not to have an emergency rudder.

It's clearly difficult to shell out hard-earned money for something you hope never to use. But I put the emergency rudder right up there with the epirb and the life raft as being essential equipment for an offshore passage.

[sabray]

Originally Posted by sailcapt

Leaving St Augustine channel, I lost steering. We were on our way to Charleston. Our boat is a full keeled ketch. We simply adjusted the sails and completed the trip without the rudder. We sailed into Charleston and anchored out until we were able to effect a repair. Whats the big deal? Some boats are steerable under sail. You might try it, it is a required manuver to become a sail instructor for USSailing.

thanks thats what i was trying to say. it works on some boats and is good to try.

[Paul Elliott]

On the recent Pacific Cup race (in which VALIS was racing and the communications boat), one of the boats lost her rudder about one third of the way to Hawaii. Actually, she lost two of her rudders. This was (is) a newly-built Class-40 racer with dual rudders, and definitely a modern-profile high-speed racing machine. Due to a design flaw or manufacturing defect (I don't know which), first one lower gudgeon broke apart, and a couple of days later the second one failed.

The crew decided to keep racing, using a towed drogue for steering. Their speed was now a fraction of what the boat was designed for, but with the wide stern of the Class-40, they were able to maintain good directional control on the downwind course. I was in radio contact with them during the race, and by using sail trim and drogue positioning they claimed it was practically like cruising. The winds were in the 10-30 kt range and the seas were perhaps 6 or 7 ft max.

A few days before reaching Hawaii they were able to use lashings to re-secure their rudders and carefully steer on their final approach, but in all I estimate they sailed over 1000 miles under the drogue.

The Pacific Cup race requires that the participants carry and demonstrate an emergency rudder (VALIS uses the Scanmar MRUD attachment to her Monitor windvane). Ironically, the Open 40 was able to bypass the emergency rudder requirement, claiming that her dual rudders provided emergency redundancy. I'm sure the emergency rudder policy will be reviewed in the future.

[Khagan1227]

Originally Posted by Bash

That's an interesting perspective. I've always looked at it differently, that I couldn't afford not to have an emergency rudder.

It's clearly difficult to shell out hard-earned money for something you hope never to use. But I put the emergency rudder right up there with the epirb and the life raft as being essential equipment for an offshore passage.

To be honest, until I read your first reply, I never seriously thought about it one way or the other. I definitely agree having an emergency rudder is one of the most important items you can have.

That said, there are many people cruising on a limited budget that may not be able to afford the cost of an emergency rudder, so in my opinion, they'd better have a plan ready to go if they ever do need one. Rigging "something" up from pieces and parts in the dark, in the middle of a storm is probably a foolish idea. I know trying to hang over the side of my boat on a lake to unfoul my rudder was a royal pain in the ..., I can't imagine trying to rig a rudder in the middle of an ocean, at night, during a storm.

Just out of curiosity, do you ever practice rigging your emergency rudder?

[duncan_ellison]

This is what I use as an emergency rudder :



Custom made by Hunter and not too expensive considering the stainless work involved.

Mounts on 3 large pad eyes permenantly installed on the transom.

Duncan
S/V TALISA

[Hud3]

Duncan, you could get even more for your money by using it to roast oysters over a fire on the beach!

On the 2005 Caribbean 1500, three boats had rudder damage. One, a Little Harbor 54 completely lost hers. They got some advice from other ralliers over their SSB, and rigged a trailing a warp with something tied to the end to create drag. The warp was attached to two lines in a vee-shaped harness, with the legs of the vee going to each of the main winches. Cranking in or out on one or the other winch would shift the drag enough to turn the boat. This worked fine for a 600 nm rudderless run to the BVI. I doubt that it would do much for you if you were sailing into the wind, though.

[Bash]

Originally Posted by Khagan1227

Just out of curiosity, do you ever practice rigging your emergency rudder?

I have done it in a seaway. Once was enough. I suspect, however, it will be much harder to accomplish when we're not able to keep the boat pointed in any given direction. My plan would be to drop all sails and then launch the drogue off the bow to give me the ten minutes I'd need to attach the rudder.

Our emergency rudder has four attachment points. I would first hook it up to the davits for security, and then attach the top two fittings. At that point it would swing down to mate with the bottom two fittings, where I'd have to insert a single thru-bolt. That will require me to get down on the sugar scoop. It won't be fun in big seas.

When we did our test run, the biggest lesson learned was how we needed to rig snatch blocks in order to use the primary spinnaker winches to control the tiller. Of course, the wheel had to be removed as well because it was just in the way at that point. Also needed to do a bit of thinking as to how best to anchor tethers when I went out on the sugar scoop.

So, yes, it's a good idea to practice rigging the emergency rudder.

[Blue Stocking]

MoororLess,
I guess its a good thing that the crew that built the rudder I described, and sailed the boat into port, didn't know that it would not work. Otherwise , they might still be out there,

[YourOldNemesis]

We lost our rudder between Tonga and Fiji, about 300nm out. It was a fin & spade hull and simply would not steer on the sails alone (we were reaching at about 7kts in 8ft swell). For those feeling smug about having keel or skeg mounted rudders, be warned that the failure on ours was that the internal steel skeleton of the rudder parted from the post and it's just as possible for that to happen on your boat too! Later, on examination we discovered the cause was twofold:

1) the design was a single straight weld holding the skeleton onto the post, with no reinforcing gussets

2) the weld had been executed in one go, so the heat had weakened the mild-steel of the skeleton.

We only know this because we had to angle-grind our rudder open and fix it - how sure are you of your rudder's internal structural integrity?!

We didn't have an emergency rudder, but none of us even considered abandoning - in that part of the Pacific, there aren't really any coastguards to come and get you. We played with various emergency rudder solutions and found that trailing a spinnaker pole (borrowed from a passing yacht) did give us some directional stability but it was still almost impossible to steer with it.

In the end we were fortunate enough to be offered a tow by another passing yacht (yes it was relatively busy just there and then - we had all set off from Va'vau on the same day, heading for Savusavu). Not wishing to spend 2 weeks steering with the spinnaker pole on a passage that should have taken 3 days, we took John up on his kind offer, and we were towed for 3.5 days.

My boat will have a complete separate emergency steering system - probably in the form of a Hydrovane, as it will also have a mechanical self-steering system. Having been through the above, I would not compromise on this safety item.

If anyone wants any long-distance open ocean towing advice, let me know, but that's not for this thread!

[MoorOrLess]

Originally Posted by Blue Stocking

MoororLess,
I guess its a good thing that the crew that built the rudder I described, and sailed the boat into port, didn't know that it would not work. Otherwise , they might still be out there,

I didnt say it didn't work, just that it doesn't work well. It certainly is a good substitute for a gym membership. If that is all that is available when you loose the rudder, then it is certainly a great option.

30 odd years ago, I use to race JOG boats, and there wouldn't have been a boat in the fleet which didn't have 4 holes in the wash board for just such a reason. We all used the pole/washboard/u-bolt concept as the emergency steering, however it was really tough work even on the lightweight JOG boats.

Having tried both methods (luckly not in an emergency) I found the seabrake option quick and easy to deploy, and gave good control over the boat.

As someone else suggested, using warp or similar would also be effective. We pulled the trip line on the brake, and found that it was still possible to steer, but it was not as responsive. Didn't try it upwind, but down hill and on a reach worked great.

[Weyalan]

I have had real experience of losing a rudder offshore, and within the last 12 months. Our rudder shaft snapped off about 4" below the hull (i.e. inside the blade) while competing in an offshore race. It was blowing about 25 knots, with about 3-4m waves at the time. We immediately doused all sail and assessed the situation.

Our thought processes were as follows:
a) Check nobody has gone overboard, or been injured (the boat "crash-tacked" when the rudder broke). Having verified that we had all crew on board and that nobody was seriously injured, we did not need to call a Mayday

b) Check that we were not taking on water - we verified that while the rudder had gone, we did not appear to have any damage to the hull or rubber tube. Having verifiedthat we were not taking on water, we did not feel the need to call an immediate Pan Pan.

c) Assess the situation calmly - We assessed the conditions - current sea state, weather forecast, our rate of drift, our distance to shore, etc and projected how long we had before we would be in danger of hitting the (rocky) coast if we were unable to jury-rig steerage. We projected that we had 4 - 5 hours at current rate of drift, based on current conditions, so we did not issue a Pan Pan.

d) Inform local Coast Radio. Although we did not issue a Pan Pan, we did make a call to the local Coast Radio listening station, informing them of our situation, position, heading and rate of drift. Various other yachts in the area, who were monitoring their radios immediately offered to come to our aid. We declined their offers (because at that time we were not in any imminent danger), but asked them to continue monitoring radio.

e) We were assessing our steering options - the sea-state was such that we decided spinnaker pole and bunk-top steering was inpractical. Our sea achor, frankly, was inadequate (although it complied with national racing rules). We were in the process of jury rigging two sea anchors using our heavy duty chain container and a plastic fuel container, with which we planned to attempt to motor (we had plenty of fuel to make safe harbour, provided we could engineer a modicum of steering).

However, at that time, a large police vessel, who happened to be in the area contacted us and offered to take us in tow to a safe anchorage. Under the circumstances, we chose to accept their offer. I am reasonably confident that we could have made safe harbour under our own steam, but given a skipper's duty of care to their crew, it would, I think, have been remiss of us not to have accepted outside assistance from the police boat.

With the benefit of hindsight, our emergency steering equipment, while compliant with the racing rules, was probably inadequate in any decent sea-state. Our towing bridle was also inadequate. We were, in some ways, lucky. We have learned from the situation. We now have a much more substantial towing bridle, with appropriate chafe protection. We have a more realistic emergency steering plan and equipment, but we will, I think, build a proper emergency rudder before we do more significant offshore sailing.

[DeepFrz]

Hud wrote:

On the 2005 Caribbean 1500, three boats had rudder damage. One, a Little Harbor 54 completely lost hers. They got some advice from other ralliers over their SSB, and rigged a trailing a warp with something tied to the end to create drag. The warp was attached to two lines in a vee-shaped harness, with the legs of the vee going to each of the main winches. Cranking in or out on one or the other winch would shift the drag enough to turn the boat. This worked fine for a 600 nm rudderless run to the BVI. I doubt that it would do much for you if you were sailing into the wind, though.

If I remember correctly it was a very difficult learning process, even on a boat with a long keel and skeg. They had enough crew that it was possible to make it in, but it would have been extremely difficult with a mom and pop crew I think.

[superdave]

who needs a rudder,when you got skills

[zeehag]

rudder does make a difference in a tight place. we lost rudder integrity 290 miles from home. is a bit different from losing the entire spade into the sea, which is entirely possible with a spade rudder. or any rudder , for that matter.
boat is controllable by jib manipulation--use jib to point your boat and steer it-- works. take a minuet to get used to -- but is doable. i am still learning that....

[ozskipper]

Originally Posted by zeehag

rudder does make a difference in a tight place. we lost rudder integrity 290 miles from home. is a bit different from losing the entire spade into the sea, which is entirely possible with a spade rudder. or any rudder , for that matter.
boat is controllable by jib manipulation--use jib to point your boat and steer it-- works. take a minuet to get used to -- but is doable. i am still learning that....

Yeh youre right that in a tight place you need better control. In the case I started this thread with, my assumtion would have be that the crew of the damaged boat would, put in a pan pan to alert the powers that be that the boat was damaged but that was not in immenent danger, but continue to sail towards the nearest port. At which time they would pick up a tow as they neared various, channels, river mouths, bays or other geographical hazard.

I think the point I was trying to make, without saying it at the time, was that they were inexperienced and panicked. Lots of money and expensive gadgets dont mean much when the poo hits the fan. In this case they abandoned an otherwise seaworthy boat.

Sadly, there are many other reported cases of people who abandon too early. Only to have thier boat washed up on some shore weeks/months later.

Cheers
Oz