Anyone Carry an Emergency Rudder ?

[troppo]

Put my Tophat 25 up on the slip for an antifoul for the first time since buying her. With unexpected rainy weather I couldn't paint but I spent the extra time in prep for painting. Noticed a slight crack along the rudder shaft and upon further gentle investigations with a chisel and then angle grinder found I needed to take it off and fix it as water had started seeping into it.

If I had not found the problem then eventually the rudder would have delaminated.

Seeing as the rudder is an important piece of the boat, I was wondering how many people carried some kind of spare rudder. And if so, what sort of spare.

Do you have a spare rudder and have you ever needed to use it?

[charliehows]

ive got a windvane self steering unit that has an aux rudder, in a jam it would work in conjunction with good sail balancing as a spare rudder. Depends on what went wrong with the main rudder, if it worked or not.

[daddle]

Carry a full size emergency rudder. Deploys easily on a transom sail track.

[boris]

I have an emergency rudder

It works ok in light to moderate conditions but over thirty knots or if the existing rudder was attached but at an acute angle it wouldn't have any effect

[belizesailor]

Yeah, one on each hull. : )

[Sailmonkey]

I have the spare rudder up in the air........although off the wind it is pretty unreliable!!

[Bash]

I carry a Scanmar SOS rudder.
http://www.selfsteer.com/products/sos/flyer.php

[troppo]

Hmm, thank you folks for your input. Gives me food for thought.

[Aslan]

I have a Scanmar too except it's a windvane autopilot. Will work great if there's a rudder failure. Keep it on deck mostly unless we're doing a real leg.

[SaucySailoress]

I thought it was a requirement to carry a spare rudder!

Ours is a little short, tho (partly cos of storage, but mainly so we don't need to take the wheel off to use it), but very sturdy. It's quite hard to use which is a problem if you need it in heavy weather. But at the end of the day, if the steering mechanism blows and we lose use of the wheel, it's there.

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by SaucySailoress

I thought it was a requirement to carry a spare rudder!

Ours is a little short, tho (partly cos of storage, but mainly so we don't need to take the wheel off to use it), but very sturdy. It's quite hard to use which is a problem if you need it in heavy weather. But at the end of the day, if the steering mechanism blows and we lose use of the wheel, it's there.

I think you are talking about an emergency tiller, rather than a spare rudder. We have the former, but not the latter.

[SaucySailoress]

Originally Posted by AiniA

I think you are talking about an emergency tiller, rather than a spare rudder. We have the former, but not the latter.

Doh! That'll be what my reports meant when they said "Saucy should listen to the question more carefully!"

TBF, I am having awful trouble remembering the simplest of words at the moment. "Forte" was one that came up at a dinner party the other night... as in "Diplomacy is just not my... bloody hell what's that word?"

[troppo]

Hmm, I had been so concerned about the rudder part of the steering system that I had not thought about breakage of the tiller. That would be just as bad since it would mean no steerage. Something more to think about.