fireball
Well-Known Member
Sounds like they needed to practice rudderless sailing!
Waste of recuers time
- Thread starter Csail
- Start date
Searush
Well-Known Member
Spot the deliberate error; we are discussing 2 different incidents!
CSail was talking about 2 people on laser & Topper off Sully, S Wales.
ZenZero posted about 2 people in one boat off West Kirkby. I read the second report, not the first. Fireballs seems to have read the first rather than second.
CSail was talking about 2 people on laser & Topper off Sully, S Wales.
ZenZero posted about 2 people in one boat off West Kirkby. I read the second report, not the first. Fireballs seems to have read the first rather than second.
westernman
Well-Known Member
Going back to the origninal incident (remember it?) the paper said,
WTF is that about? How does leaving someone in the water help the situation? No wonder they couldn't make progress! One of the two concerned is described as experienced, yet even in Scouts we were encouraged to practice steering without a rudder. Even dragging a leg over the side would be better as it is almost imossible to tow a swimmer in the water with a dinghy unless it is blowing a houley.
It is also highly recommended by all safety guides to carry at least one paddle & a baler, tied on. The paddle can be used over the aft quarter as a steerboard very effectively, even a baler could be dragged in the water to help steer. Or you can lower the sails & use paddle & baler to get home without a rudder. With limited steering it should still be easy to get into shallow water & wade back to base towing a dinghy - I have done that in the past.
BTW the Dee estuary has big tides & is very exposed to the NW, but I don't know the conditions on the day.
It might have been a dinghy with self bailing cockpit, and as someone else has said, often paddles are not carried.
The dinghy in question seems to not have a jib. Then without a rudder it is very difficult to steer effectively and make headway to windward in anything other than light and smooth conditions. It also might not be possible to pivot the centre board - in which case there is no way to control this boat with no rudder. The lateral force on the rudder would be an essential component for balancing the sail plan.
maxi77
Well-Known Member
Ah that clears it up, it's all zerozero's fault, I avoide reading what appeared at first to be a supplementary report not an unrelated incident.
