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Equipment required by Rules Issues

J

jimb522

New member
I have looked all over, and I have researched past race equipment requirements, but
need a ruling on emergency steering.
First Question: Who makes that ruling. I dont want to show up and not have time to fix the problem.
Second Question: The specific issue I have. I installed a complete rudder system off a
Farrier 33. It is a daggerboard rudder that drops into a two piece "cassette", which is made of fiberglas. The casette is held on the transom witn gudgeons secured by a stainless shaft. The casette is built in two halves, and has a shear pin between the two halvs, to protect the transom in the case of the rudder hitting something.
If that happens, the rudder may be damaged, but the shear pin will separate before the cassette is damaged, or the pintles and gudgeons (all metal) are damaged.
MY SOLUTION: I propose to simply make a spare rudder that fits the cassette, carry a spare couple of sheer pins, and call it good.
Am I right?
Jim
 
jimb522 said:
I have looked all over, and I have researched past race equipment requirements, but
need a ruling on emergency steering.
First Question: Who makes that ruling. I dont want to show up and not have time to fix the problem.
Second Question: The specific issue I have. I installed a complete rudder system off a
Farrier 33. It is a daggerboard rudder that drops into a two piece "cassette", which is made of fiberglas. The casette is held on the transom witn gudgeons secured by a stainless shaft. The casette is built in two halves, and has a shear pin between the two halvs, to protect the transom in the case of the rudder hitting something.
If that happens, the rudder may be damaged, but the shear pin will separate before the cassette is damaged, or the pintles and gudgeons (all metal) are damaged.
MY SOLUTION: I propose to simply make a spare rudder that fits the cassette, carry a spare couple of sheer pins, and call it good.
Am I right?
Jim
Click to expand...
Hello Jim,

Our chief inspector is George Lythcott. He would have the ultimate call on this when the boat is inspected. Your set up sounds good assuming the construction is strong enough to hold up to use. That can be subjective. A photo would be a big help. You might also describe the rudder construction as they have been know to snap if the build schedule isn't sufficient. Keep in mind you should also plan for a means of attaching a self steering system to the E Rudder. I am assuming that if the sheer pin fails the cassette remains connected to the boat via the upper gudgeon which also serves as a pivot for the rudder when it kicks up ? The best test is an on the water sail over a few miles to see how well it will work. Your setup sounds quite sound. Cassette rudders are usually quite easy to install in a seaway.

Please PM me if you want an email address to send a photo to. Also, I will send you George's email address via email.

Regards,

Brian
 
I propose to simply make a spare rudder that fits the cassette, carry a spare couple of sheer pins, and call it good. Am I right?
Click to expand...
I'm familiar with that kick up system, it's nice and will likely save your primary rudder system in most situations but if I was inspecting your boat (and I've inspected plenty) it would not pass. The emergency rudder should not rely on anything to do with your primary rudder. It needs to be completely independent with it's own mount. If anything failed with your cassette, pintle, gudgeon, stern,etc. then your extra foil would be worth zilch.
 
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solosailor,
Four points:
1. The shear pin protects the casette and transom, which would certainly include the gudgeons and pintles. If the rudder does not break, the shear pin would. Hence the only thing reasonably likely to break, is the rudder upon striking a hard object. This particular rudder system was built to go on a boat capable of more then double my speeds and will be under its designed stress load limits by half.
2. `While you are correct that one should build in back-up safety features for critical systems, there is a limit as to what is reasonable, or necessary. This particular system has safety features to insure the only breakable part one could reasonably anticipate is the rudder, which event is covered by the spare rudder. The system is far from fragile, and while I am not going to drive my one-ton dually dodge truck over it to prove a point, i doubt there would be much, if any damage. It is really built well. And strong.
3. Reasonable vs. necessary: At some point all safety decisions come down to a cost/ benefit analysis vs. risk tolerance. If one looks at the specific risk, say a broken mast (and I have lost seven masts in my sailing career), it might be a solution to require a spare mast and rigging. Such a requirement for a spare mast might be necessary due to the risk and consequences if you are a thousand miles from land, but would not be reasonable. It doesnt pass a benefit/risk test. At some level, we accept this a very dangerous and risky sport, as we are reminded in the racing rules for all events, and we do the best we can do to survive in case of calamity. I think my solution minimizes the risks to an acceptable level.

4. a.) I appreciate your thoughts, really, but I'm glad you are not the inspector.:):) and

b.) If all my rudder solutions fail, and you have to pick me up with a thousand miles to go to get to Hawaii, I accept the risk, nay, the certain knowledge, that I will hear "I told you so", at least once per mile the whole way there.

If you are at the power management seminar I will look forward to meeting you, or, if not, when I get to california with the boat.
Jim
 
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Not trying to pick apart your logic:

1) It doesn't matter how great the primary setup is..... it has the potential to fail at multiple points including the cassette and mount system. It has nothing to do with the rudder itself, if anything else fails you have no backup and the spare foil is useless.

2) There is a limit to what is "reasonable , or necessary"..... An emergency rudder solution should not rely on components from your primary rudder system..... it's that simple.

3) Wow, 7 masts..... won't comment on that except you obviously realize that failures DO happen.

4) I might be your inspector but that is besides the point. ;)

I'll be at the meeting..... see you then. -g
 
I think solosailor is trying to give you some useful guidance here, so you can get your e-rudder setup properly organized, rather than have to scramble after a failed inspection. And he might or might not be an inspector; there is a Chief Inspector already named, but there may also be delegate inspectors.

Given the history of rudder failures over many races around the world, it is a pretty key item, and I tend to agree with solosailor that an e-rudder be completely independent of the the primary system, e.g. no common mechanical elements.
 
Do you guys really not know??

Hint: this year he competed doublehanded, in spite of his forum name.
 
Pogen,
I asked for help in finding the answe to an equipment question, not help in finding someone to agree with my point of view.
Frankly, I have a different opinion, and disagree with his opinion. While his (and your) opinion is based on a valid point of view, that point of view precludes (in my opinion) other workable solutions to the basic problem. Nevertheless, I am grateful for all responses and points of view, as they force me to re-examine mine.
Finally, solosailor is not George. It will be interesting to see his opinion after he sees it.
As a point of fact, I dont make the rules, and I will follow the rules whether I agree with them or not.
Jim
 
Frankly, I have a different opinion, and disagree with his opinion. While his (and your) opinion is based on a valid point of view, that point of view precludes (in my opinion) other workable solutions to the basic problem.
Click to expand...
I'm not precluding a workable solution..... just not one that relies on all of the complex components from your primary kick-up rudder which has lots of points of failure. Here is a picture of that rudder setup, lots of parts to break, not just the foil.

rudderkback.jpg

A heads up that I have been considering this system for myself for some time for the same reason you did..... it will likely prevent the main foil from ever breaking. However after hitting something at speed during the Windjammers in Sept. @ 18-20k boat speed I've changed my mind. If the rudder would have kick-up we would have broached and would continue to broach since the cassette pin would have been sheared. I ran through what might happen at that point, sails up, sea state midsized+ would have left us on our ear pitching around..... my gut instinct tells me that if the rudder was dragging around on the bottom section the side to side movement would easily lever arm the top gudgeons to failure while the boat was beam to the waves.

Let's chat tonight, I've got an idea where you could combine the spare foil (which you could still use with the primary cassette) with an additional mount (non-cassette)..... the best of both with a completely autonomous rudder system.
 
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Look for the guy wearing an LSU shirt, that does not sound like he is from california. Was that boat a Farr 33, or larger in the photo you sent?
Jim
 
pogen said:
Do you guys really not know??

Hint: this year he competed doublehanded, in spite of his forum name.
Click to expand...

... and he built Rags' e-rudder. He kinda knows what he's on about. They call him . . .

The Laminator
 
Someone should make sure Chris from Ventus reads this, since his erudder solution (and mine) have the same vulnerabilities that Greg/solo mentions.

Solo, what would you think of an erudder solution where every part of the main rudder system has a matching replacement, including the transom. That is, you carry a blade, a cassette that fits the transom gudgeons, spare gudgeons, and a G10 sheet cut and drilled to effectively fix a hole ripped in the transom? If any or all of the main system fails, you have a replacement for it.
 
Transom gudgeons supporting a rudder are highly loaded, as is the transom section the gudgeons are mounted to. For the situation where the boat is normally sailed with a cassette-mounted rudder attached via gudgeons/pintles, such as you're describing, I would want to see the 'emergency' gudgeons already mounted on the transom. Carrying a separate section of G10 to repair a torn-out transom strikes me as overkill - if the back of the boat breaks off due to rudder loads then you have a whole new set of issues that have little to do with whether or not you can steer the boat...

But I would want to see the backup gudgeons already mounted, in place, ready to go; it's actually rather difficult to drill accurate holes at sea, and then you have to thru-bolt the spare gudgeons by yourself whilst crawling around inside the transom to hold the nuts.

- rob/beetle
 
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