Emergency Rudders Show-and-Tell

[Wylieguy]

History Written by Who?

Yes, Forester and several others. As they say, "History is written by the winners." Depending on your after-life beliefs, you might get a chance to hear the other side of the story? Hmmm. Would you find a Nazi Battleship Captain up in Heaven or down below in the bilge?

In 1983 I sailed my Newport 30 to Monterey. We overnighted at the yacht club, tied up just under the sea wall. As evening approached we noticed crowds of young-looking men in blue outfits walking by, enjoying bottles of something, and making an increasing amount of noise. We thought it was a giant fraternity party.

The next morning we popped out of that narrow Monterey Marina entrance and there it was - the U.S.S. Missouri anchored fore and aft squarely in our path back to Santa Cruz. With a dozen patrol boats making sure no one got within half a mile. Now we knew who the men in blue were. I think it took us half an hour to motor around the stern, keeping outside the picket line.

In the meantime we were also dodging shore boats shuttling sailors back and forth and dozens of private boats out gawking. Once on the Santa Cruz side, we began heading North, only to be stopped by a Coast Guard boat asking where we were going. We said, "Santa Cruz" and they said, "OK." And off we sailed. I guess we looked okay, although at the time I had a full beard and pony tail.

I visited the Missouri when she was tied up in Richmond several years ago. It really did seem as big as it looked that morning all those years ago. I knew one of the guys working on the ship and got an inside look at a very small part of it. It would have taken a week to look everywhere. I can believe the rudder stocks on battleships are that large. Everything else is.

Those would have been some pretty big dowels.

I found one statement (on the Internet, so it must be true) that the Bismarck's rudder stocks were steel tubes 82cm OD, 30 cm ID. About 1.3 tons per foot of length.

I recently read C.S. Forester's Last Nine Days of the Bismarck, a very entertaining though not exactly unbiased view of the events.

 

[peter00]

Historically rudders were not at the stern of a boat but on the quarter. I've often wondered if any thought has been devoted to a quarter rudder as an alternative. The mounting might be an issue but then it is an issue always. If you google The development of the rudder there are lots of proven quarter rudder set ups. Just a thought. Great thread, I sure never thought of the problem of capping the rudder tube (although with all the crap I carry I could probably manage).

 

[dhusselman]

If the boat has dual rudders, is there still a requirement for an emergency rudder? Dual rudders without emergency rudders was approved for Pac Cup..
Dirk "TIJD" First 30JK

 

[BobJ]

For SHTP, if you have dual rudders you already have an e-steering solution (the second rudder) so you don't need another one. That's going back 6 or 8 SHTP's worth of inspections that I know of. You still need a spare tiller unless you also have two of those. For example, Minis have dual rudders but a single tiller so they need to carry a spare.

I'll defer to Max (LongPac Race Chair) regarding that race but I'm guessing it's the same. I believe there's also a requirement for a pronounceable boat name

 

[svShearwater]

If the boat has dual rudders, is there still a requirement for an emergency rudder? Dual rudders without emergency rudders was approved for Pac Cup..
Dirk "TIJD" First 30JK

Key word being "WAS" approved. Pretty sure Pac Cup no longer accepts dual rudders without an emergency rudder since California Condor broke both their rudders and had to sail 1000 miles with a drogue.

 

[BobJ]

Shear, was it a design/build issue or did Condor hit something that took out both rudders? Being a one-off, I'd guess it was a design/build issue.

Anyway, Pacific Cup is not the SHTP.
.

 

[brianb]

Did nt Condor also lose a rudder in the Coastal cup ? In any case, second had info was that the issue came down to under spec welds.

 

[svShearwater]

Yes. Lots of good miles since then without any issues though. Hopefully that means it's all sorted.

 

[Critter]

For SHTP, if you have dual rudders you already have an e-steering solution (the second rudder) so you don't need another one. That's going back 6 or 8 SHTP's worth of inspections that I know of. You still need a spare tiller unless you also have two of those. For example, Minis have dual rudders but a single tiller so they need to carry a spare.

Agreed. I would stick with SSS precedent and accept dual rudders without a spare. After all, if a dual-ruddered boat can lose both port and starboard rudders, a single-rudder boat could lose both the primary and the spare.

 

[DaveH]

Killing me to miss this. Stuck in the shop all day today.
dh

 

[Philpott]

Killing me to miss this. Stuck in the shop all day today.
dh

Well, that is a shame. Look what you missed: Great turnout on Saturday. After show and tell five boats deployed their emergency rudders: Lightspeed, Bandicoot, Southernaire, Ragtime! and Iniscaw with varying degrees of success. The wind outside Richmond Yacht Club was approximately 12-14 knots, and every boat had crew. Here are the photos, I leave it to their skippers to offer up problems to be solved.

 

[Philpott]

more ER photos

Here are more and more to come still. Stay tuned

 

[Philpott]

ER photos

find here and no more after.

 

[dhusselman]

Thanks for sharing. Sorry I missed the event!

 

[mike cunningham]

Yes, me too. I spent all day Fri and Sat getting my new, locking companionway boards sorted out.

 

[BobJ]

I took a bunch of video both ashore and sailing. There's very little sound though - the GoPro was inside its waterproof box. I could send clips to those in the video and they could make a narration using Voice Memos (iPhone) or similar. Then we could combine the video and audio files and post it on YouTube. Are you guys up for that?

Overall a very successful day in my view. We learned what actually works and what doesn't.

We raced down to the Southampton Shoal platform and back with e-steering. Max won by a country mile. I don't think I'd want to spend all that effort pulling steering lines though. It was a lot easier to just stick the boat on autopilot

 

[brianb]

Impressive, Max is able to install the rudder cassette even with the boat at 90 deg !

 

[brianb]

Did anyone try the sweep ?

 

[BobJ]

I don't think so, but we did deploy the kraken and recover it.

For those who weren't there, "the kraken" is my name for a Burke drogue, a well-regarded Australian brand. It came in a nice blue* bag printed with various illustrations, such as using it with a bridle for emergency steering. It worked fine as a drogue but was ineffective as a steering device. The tails of the bridle were led to the primary winches which are well forward on my boat, but this did not provide enough angle to move the stern as each bridle tail was tensioned. This made me realize that unless you have a really wide boat (like a multihull), towing buckets, etc. on either side to steer probably won't work. At a minimum you'd need them on outriggers of some kind.

* This was not the only reason I bought it.

 

[Critter]

Paul realized it was going to be hard to stow the sweep anywhere on my boat, plus he would have to disassemble it and reassemble it out on the water, so he decided to leave it behind.

As for my setup, I found that it steers quite well upwind. Downwind, as I learned two years ago when I was using it for real, the rudder stalls easily - not surprising, considering the crude foil shape. And as Bob mentioned, it's very hard work steering with it. I was going to build a better-balanced (swept forward?) blade over the winter, but I didn't get around to it. Paul suggested a trim tab on the trailing edge that would get some servo action going .... I may give that some thought.

Max