Rudder positioning during anchoring or mooring

[darylat8750]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

The friction lack on mine is only good for extended motoring and hand steering, It's a balanced rudder and the prop wash acts on one side more than the other causing the rudder to deflect to port when under power, it's useful for that, but little else.
Just looking at the surface area of an average rudder it's apparent that even slight pressure over such a large area amounts to significant force.

Mine sails on anchor no matter where I position the rudder, I've considered but not tried a drogue off the stern to see if that helps, I have not tried a riding sail $$

I doubt that drag in the water off the stern will help and is likely to make it worse. Added drag on the bow may help. I anchor with a bridle running to each side of the bow and that helps. Sometimes making it a little off center settles it down. Sometimes not. It seems that some combinations of wind speed and current and phases of the moon will start it going. Mine moves slow enough that rudder position doesn't seem to matter. I picked up a Drift Sock similar to these http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&key...l_78jk4madgy_b Those look a little pricy. I don't recall where I got mine but paid less than $20 for it. My plan is to hang it just under the water on the chain that hangs down between the bridle. I've heard good reports of this but haven't actually needed it myself yet. When I use it I'll try to get a picture and let you know if it does any good.

[barnakiel]

I tie the tiller down. In our boat a wave can hit the rudder and the tiller will fly across the cockpit: I think it might, in extremis, break. So I tie it down.

b.

[zeehag]

when i was in huge san diego ex pnw storms on mooring, i let a broken 3 gal bucket astern, and i set my rudder 15-20 degrees to heave her to. she rode much better in that mode than set center and affixed.
fin keel does well centered, my heavy deep long keeled ketch likes to heave to.

[Blue Stocking]

Originally Posted by zeehag

when i was in huge san diego ex pnw storms on mooring, i let a broken 3 gal bucket astern, and i set my rudder 15-20 degrees to heave her to. she rode much better in that mode than set center and affixed.
fin keel does well centered, my heavy deep long keeled ketch likes to heave to.

Zee, we are on the same page.