tillers

[TJAGAIN]

as a newcomerm to sailing i thought what could i do if i broke the tiller steering?
do i carry a spare ? they are a bit on the large size or do i carry some sort of jury tiller ? i would be interested to hear your opinions.

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[Talbot]

Having been in the centre of the channel when the rudder broke on the boat I was racing in, I suspect that you should view this as a double possibility What if rudder or tiller break you then have an easier route for secondary steering. On the boat I was in, we quickly modified a locker lid with some 1/4" holes, and attached the spinnaker pole with cable ties. The washboard was used over the stern and controlled by the spinnaker pole, roped on the stern at a cleat. Biggest problem was stopping the wasboard from toppling, so we modified a bit of broom pole through the inboard end fitting on the pole, and had no real problems from then on, despite deteriorating weather conditions and some quite large waves around the needles. We didnt try to sail, just motored, as it was quite difficult to balance this particular boat to get zero weather/lee helm. Having done it once, the equipment was ready to go from then on if needed.

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[johnsomerhausen]

I have two 3/4" plywood fenderboars (about 4 ft long and 1 ft wide) which I have prepared to make an emergency rudder- I cut and drilled two SS plates to joing them together and also made thed hole in the boards. Since I have an inboard rudder, I installed two gudgeons on the transom to receive the pintles of the emrgency rudder. In order to facilitate the installation, I also got a sheet of lead to counter the buoyancy of the plywood. My tiller is a long axe handle with a block of oak planking epoxied at the end, it has a 3/4" slit that ends in a large hole. The slit embraces the rudder´s head and the large hole allow mouvement since the tiller encloses the backstay.
The only drawback is that the turning circle´s diameter is ten boat lengths....
john

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[bedouin]

RORC requirements are that you carry both an emergency tiller and have a way of steering the boat in case the rudder breaks. I tend to regard breaking the tiller itself as very unlikely, so would concentrate on the emergency rudder aspects.

However in order to satisfy the requirements I do carry a length of wood designed so that it will bolt on in place of the tiller. Since it is straight it fits in the cockpit locker and takes up very little space. If I were being more serious about designing a tiller I think I would fabricate a steel fitting that attaches to the rudder stock and into which I could slot one half of one of the tender paddles to give the leverage.

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[Robin]

I once owned a lovely Elizabethan 30 which came to me with a spare tiller. The tiller actually broke one day, the lifting rudderhead/end fitting was aluminium and sheared across the bolt holes. No problem I though, I have a spare.....the spare though w2as just the wooden tiller, no end fitting! We steered for a while with a mole grip clamped on the rudderhead, then drilled the wooden bosuns chair seat to use giving more leverage. The new rudderhead was S/S and I made a second one for the spare.

Re losing the rudder, fabricating an emergency rudder is the easy bit IMO, getting it to work is something else. If you 'lose' the rudder, what does that mean? If it means it fell off or half broke off then maybe but what if something hit it and the rudder is jammed hard over? Like many people we carry the materials to make something up (heavy floorboards, spinnaker pole, big jubilee clips, big bolts and the tools to cut/fabricate) and we have a responsive boat that normally can be set up to balance and track well. Will it work in practice is another question! We do have wheel steering and an emergency tiller, plus our inboard pilot drives directly on the quadrant, so it is loss of or damage to the actual blade that would cause real problems.

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>

 

[Robin]

Talbot

We once met a very nice Belgian couple who were returning from an Atlantic circuit on a 9m catalac. They lost BOTH rudders simultaneously mid Atlantic on the return crossing when the rudder blades sheared off. He made replacement blades from florboards etc and reinforced them with steel from the oven, he had power tools and a portable generator on board. They had to wait several days for the swell to subside enough to fit the new blades, and two more for the sharks to depart and allow him in the water to fit them! i don't know if the blades were a weak point on Catalacs or if they were beefed up on later models but certainly it is food for thought.

Robin

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>

 

[Talbot]

There are two types of rudder that you can get with Catalac. The one I have has a skeg, and a solid rudder from top of the transom to bottom of the skeg (and a third bearing at the base of the skeg). There has never been a problem with these at sea. The other type has no skeg, has a solid rudder post for the length of the transom, and then a galvanised plate that pivots at the base of the transom. This type has been known to break (and from the sound of your couple, theirs was of this type). Where this one is better than the skeg and full rudder is if you are on a drying mooring, if the catalac takes a sheer just as it is grounding, and if the skeg is the first bit to touch the bottom, it puts an enormous load on the skeg. The lifting plate acts in a similar manner to a dinghy rudder and lifts out of the water, thus was the prefered option for people buying their boat and intending to use a drying mooring.

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[Robin]

I think you are right about the blade type they had being the lifting,

<hr width=100% size=1><font size=1>Sermons from my pulpit are with tongue firmly in cheek and come with no warranty!</font size=1>