I wouldn't have a yacht for sailing
offshore without an emergency tiller of some sort. Back up steering systems are part of the offshore
game.
One of the things I liked about my
catamaran was the fact that I had four different ways of steering the cat. I had two steering wheels each going to it's own separate quadrant. There was an
autohelm 700
linear drive autopilot, and as a final
safety measure, we had an emergency tiller that went through a deck plate on to the top of the port rudder post. The rudder post was squared off on top, and the emergency tiller was made from heavy duty
aluminum pipe in the form of a socket that slipped over the rudder post in an emergency.
We also had two rudders on the boat since we are a
catamaran, making a very redundant steering system.
We have had the
Privilege catamaran for 13 years, did an eleven year
circumnavigation, and our steering hasn't failed us yet. May our good fortune continue.
I have been in three storms with winds to fifty knots, and if we had
lost our steering in any of those incidents, we could have gotten into real trouble. If the steering cable fails in forty knots of
wind and 20 foot seas, you will find it very difficult to steer the boat using only your
sails. Traditional crusing boats with long keels may be more forgiving in such circumstances because they have a great deal of directional stability, but it wouldn't be fun.
In the last two transatlantic
ARC rallies, there have been boats that lost their rudders, and as I
recall, the yachts were abandoned because they weren't able to steer the yachts without rudders. Whether your rudder falls off or your steering cable breaks, the end result is the same. You can't control your yacht.
When I had my Westsail 32 and my
Pearson Renegade 27, I practiced sailing without using my tiller/rudder. It's surprising how well you can sail a
full keel yacht offshore by balancing your
sails.
Cheers,