Yachtmaster question #6

It all depends on the boat.Lots of boats can be sailed without a rudder . My own boat sails perfectly to windward with the main sheet traveller dropped down and in stronger winds more reefs in the main. Ok the rudder is still there but not lashed or doing anything.

Also quite rare for a yacht to be equipped with NUC lights.

One thing I definitely would not do untill the wind moderated or changed direction would be to carry on towards a lee shore hoping to arrange a tow on arrival.
 
The other factor here (but in fairness, would only to obvious to people that have sailed off the Belgian coast) is that the sandbanks extend for a good few miles offshore.... and are less than 1.5m LAT in places.. this combined with a NW wind, with a fetch the length of the North Sea, blowing at upto F7, and an opposing tide would make this an extremely dangerous place to be... so in reality, you would probably only have 5nm of safe water....
 
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My own boat sails perfectly to windward with the main sheet traveller dropped down and in stronger winds more reefs in the main. Ok the rudder is still there but not lashed or doing anything.

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Mine doesn't.

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Also quite rare for a yacht to be equipped with NUC lights.

[/ QUOTE ] Mine has.

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One thing I definitely would not do untill the wind moderated or changed direction would be to carry on towards a lee shore hoping to arrange a tow on arrival.

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Here we agree, I thought I made that clear, Hope is not much use at all.
 
That certainly increases the urgency,if your boat is of a type that can go to windward without a rudder then that 5 miles will now be slowly increasing. If not then I would go for the Anchor out on the end of all the chain and warp you have ,

engine slow ahead to take the weight off taking care not to ride up on the warp.. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

Mayday call and crew in Lifejackets etc Liferaft readied for use if needed. Some may argue its not a Mayday in reality the response will be the same anyway and this scenario could rapidly escalate.
 
sails for steering, motor for drive and stop buggering about with enjoyable navigation techniques and get the chartplotter out......this is now potentially serious as the bars might be closed by the time you get in.

if you feel the need for more steerage bolt the hatch board onto one end of the spinaker pole - and something to take the torque in handling it on the other. Aren't 24v cordless drills wonderfull! Probably worth booking in with a reseraunt at this point too - and ask the maitre D to coorinate an easy access berth for you - it's in his interests after all.
 
To be honest I think we probably agree on most points. I misunderstood the original question thinking there was 15 miles of safe water to leeward ,With only 5 miles theres no scope for pratting about trying out different options. This highlights the need to practice for these situations.

My boat has a long sweep oar which serves pretty well as an emergency rudder,I know this beacause I have tried it.too late for experiments in the situation Neil has set for us.
 
LOL....

Duncan, you could even bring along your own fresh catch for them to prepare and serve!!!!!!!

On a more serious note again... I did notice that the article in this months ST, talking about emergency rudders had 4 suggestions.... every single one of them relied upon a spinnaker pole....

Given that the vast majority of new boats nowadays don't have spinnaker poles... it kind of makes life a little more challenging.... I got to thinking about it as I don't have a pole either, and I don't have any other alternatives....

My only option would be to resort to the engine, and use the boom for the emergency rudder.... hardly ideal!

I did think about how I might be able to 'hang' a sole board from the transom by means of two rope loops in its leading edge, and lash a pair of boathooks along the top edge as the tiller.... but it would be highly dodgy!
 
Duncan I dont know if your post is tongue in cheek but while on the phone to the restaraunt you could book some places in the morgue for yourself and crew should your emergency steering fail and you wind up on a bar (sand not drinking type)
 
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I did notice that the article in this months ST, talking about emergency rudders had 4 suggestions.... every single one of them relied upon a spinnaker pole....


[/ QUOTE ] few will believe I got my clue from ST..............

other options would be

tender oars - short and weak unless you had a nice full sized wooden oar in which case just use it! With the engine delivering full power even a small blade will steer well but need a lot of leveage to hold it !

someone elses spinaker pole - this would be great ruse. get them over and explain what you intend to do to it. waving a large drill for emphasis. in practice they will have the tow sorted in minutes and happily divert 180 degrees to get you ashore asap! If junk rigged you could extend this to someone else's boom even more effective!

having had 10mins to consider I think you could also use a bucket (preferably with a big hole in) or similar attached by rope to the end of the boom (mailsail away by now) and using the mainsheet and a pair of gybe preventers swing the boom about to steer using the drag whilst driving from the engine. given the wind direction this could be quite stable with a full forsail.
 
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should your emergency steering fail and you wind up on a bar

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awe come on - my main steering just failed unexpectedly and I am not on a sand bar so if my emergecy one fails at least give me credit for making appropriate allowances in my future navigation and being prepared for another failure!
 
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I'm not sure about some posters reluctance about the Pan Pan call, and the suggestions to "arrange a tow when close in," and suchlike. The Pan will elicit a properly managed response from people trained to help. They won't accept a codicil that you don't need help. You're going to get it, and don't worry about it. The CG are not there to test radios on, or to repeat missed forecasts. This is their real bread and butter. I think all the circumstances here add up to a PAN PAN with capitals, and is very close to becoming a Mayday. Even a "For Information Only" call to them will elicit a physical response in most cases (Been there).
As for heaving-to or even trying to sail out of this position, these options sound impossible and will almost certainly result in a Pan Pan later on. "Why didn't you Pan earlier."


[/ QUOTE ] Point well made. As you say, Pan Pan should be near top of the list. I'd give my yacht name position, number of people on board, state loss of rudder and request "stand by". This may sound provocative, but with only 5 miles of sea room to the lee, I'd want to concentrate on controlling the boat's leeway before answering questions coming over the VHF re state of my ground tackle, possession of flares, etc. Of course if you have enough crew who know what they're doing, one of them could be assigned to the VHF. Given that the service batteries may be dodgy, one would also start the engine asap, even if only to run it in neutral.
 
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at least give me credit for making appropriate allowances

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Sorry but anyone who would carry on towards a dangerous lee shore without a rudder doesnt get much credit from me.
 
Surely anyone who cannot steer their boat with sail trim would have a workable plan instantly to hand? After all, steerage is just as important as propulsion and most people have a plan for alternative propulsion. I would have thought that the need for this would be particularly obvious if you have an unprotected rudder.

I know it isn't the question, but the mistake was surely made long before he set off.
 
Do you KNOW that your boat will sail under just sail trim without a rudder present?

It might if you let the rudder just do its own thing, but what if that rudder wasn't even present?

I don't know if mine would?

I do know that some dinghies that I have owned in the past could be sailed with the rudder removed through leaning the boat, and handling the sails, and some would just slew straight up into the wind..... but they would both be manageable with the rudder just doing its own thing, but still in the water.....

So... the plan may or may not work.....

And secondly, the difference between a theoretical working plan, and one that actually does as intended on a dark night, in a F7 with a big sea running is frankly huge...

So while I agree, some forethought is sensible, I think its rash to assume that a workable plan would ever be readily to hand.....
 
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I know it isn't the question, but the mistake was surely made long before he set off.

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I would not like to state that my rudder is safe from removal by a floating object and she does need a reasonable amount of rudder to steer with. I could probably manage rudderless sailing in a nice calm sea with a F3/4 ... but in a lumpy sea with a F7 I'd not bet my life on it. I do NOT have a workable plan to hand as circumstances change so much that it would be impossible to cover every eventuality.

The chap set off with a reasonable forecast and no indication that he was about to try some advanced sailing.
 
Did you actually try the 700 rudderless or did you just drop the tiller extension! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
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at least give me credit for making appropriate allowances

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Sorry but anyone who would carry on towards a dangerous lee shore without a rudder doesnt get much credit from me.

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if my emergency steerage arrangemnts are working then I have a rudder - if they are not then clearly I won't continue!

let's up th estakes...........battery fails, hh vhf is faulty, nights falling and someone let all the flares off last halloeen. no mobile phones, no torches and the guy that sensibly chuckesd the anchor over realising the dangers not to sensibly forgot to check it was attached in the chain locker - it wasn't.

one of the crew jests "i really wish we had got that radar reflector they suggested we should have on the ybw.com forum".

now what..........
 
dropped the extension more times than I care to imagine, but mostly sailing when i'd fallen off the rack with the extension still in my hand, and permanently shortened it by about 1.5m /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif

The boat would have been completed uncontrollable without a rudder, rather than situation normal, of only partially controllable /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
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