Yachtmaster question #6

Re: Rudderless steering

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I think there is a fair illustration here of people's reluctance to call "mayday".

but I would bet £1 to a pinch of pig sh*t that every lifeboat organisation would want you to call for help now rather than wait until the situation becomes dire.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm pretty sure this is what they actually recommend... we would rather attend a Mayday call which wasnt necessarily a Mayday, than pick up the bodies after the wrong call, or no call.

Bit like a skipper wanting to be called whatever the concern, and also like if you're thinking about reefing, just do it.
 
Re: Rudderless steering

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OK you can argue about what "imminent" means but I would bet £1 to a pinch of pig sh*t that every lifeboat organisation would want you to call for help now rather than wait until the situation becomes dire.

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to remember that this particular scenario takes place off Belgium.

SAR means just that - they will rescue (40Sqn Heli out of Koksijde) you FOC - you want your yacht saved? You pay a private firm & they aren't cheap.
Once you call a MayDay you lose all control over the situation - MRCC (Oostende Radio) takes over. A PanPan is more adviseable.
PanPan lets everyone know you're in some sort of trouble, MayDay's "HELP ME"
 
Re: Yachtmaster question #6 (long post)

This happened to us during the 1994 YM Triangle race - fortunately not in shallows or on a lee shore. The following is an extract from an account I wrote about it a few years ago.

The Rudder Saga

Our qualifying sail passed off uneventfully and on arrival at Torquay the boat passed the fairly thorough scrutineering with flying colours. During the inspection, the scrutineer asked us what we would do in the event of a total rudder failure. We gave him the usual stuff about using the spinnaker pole over the stern, and steering with a drogue. "How well do you think it would work?" He asked. "Not very well", we answered.

The race started in light conditions, and the wind continued light until we were past Lands End, with the boats bunching up as groups of us sailed into areas of total calm. We flew our new cruising chute much of the way to the Scillies, including the night watches, which helped somewhat with progress. After the Scillies the wind moved round to the north-west, so the rest of the trip to Crosshaven consisted of long, slow tacks. The Decca played up a bit, but finding Ireland wasn’t a major problem. It was only in the last few hours that the wind piped up, giving us a pleasant reach over the finish line. We motored up the river to join the earlier finishers at the Royal Cork Yacht Club, and celebrate our arrival.

There was more wind for the start of the second leg, and we were soon reefed down and reaching fast in the general direction of France. After a few hours the seas had increased, and the fleet had spread out quite a bit as we approached the offshore oil platforms around 25 miles from the coast. Sarah was at the helm (which was quite hard work at the time) and I was at the chart table plotting our position and making the regular log entry.

Suddenly the boat luffed up, sails flapping. Sarah shouted down that she had lost all steering. Thinking that it could be a linkage problem, I fetched the emergency tiller which fits to the top of the rudder stock. There was still no steering. As the rudder is underneath the stern of the boat, we couldn’t see whether it was still in place or not.

What to do? We reduced sail and hove to as best we could. We tried taking the sails down and motoring, with the spinnaker pole over the stern for steering, but with the prop wash and the seas throwing us off, the boat was impossible to control. As we have in-mast reefing on the main and the roller genoa, we then tried balancing the sails. Eventually we got this to work, and with a very small amount of each sail unrolled, and the spinnaker pole providing some steering, we headed the boat back toward Crosshaven.

We tried contacting the race organisers on the VHF to tell them that we were retiring, and to ask for the club launch to meet us by the harbour entrance to tow us in. It turned out that we were out of range, but one of the oil platforms kindly offered to relay our message, so we did get through in the end.

The Coastguard had evidently been monitoring our transmission, and asked us if we were in distress and in need of assistance. We told them that we expected to be OK as long as the yacht club could tow us up the river. They asked us to call them every hour with an update, which we duly did. We later learned that they had got the helicopter warmed up in case we needed rescuing…

With so little sail up, progress back was slow, and it was getting dark as we approached the coast. The yacht club RIB called us on the radio, but they had some trouble finding us (despite having our Decca position) due to the largish waves and tiny amount of canvas exposed. Eventually they found us and took us in tow.

By the time we had been towed up the river and tied up to the pontoon, the bar had just closed. Irish hospitality triumphed, however, and it was re-opened so we could drown our sorrows with liberal quantities of Murphy’s.

The next day we had a look to see what had happened – and it turned out that the whole rudder was missing. What had happened? The Excalibur has an unsupported spade rudder and the stock, unbelievably, had been made in two parts, an upper solid one and a lower tubular one, welded together at roughly the point where it enters the hull - in other words the point of maximum stress. Needless to say, it had broken at the weld. Equally needless to say, I specified a solid stainless steel stock for the replacement.


Note that Avalon has a spade rudder (and long fin) so it is possible after some experimentation to sail a boat of this sort without a rudder......
 
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8] realise that there is probably a flag or signal that I can fly to show my predicament but that even if I look it up I don't have said flag or signal on board


[/ QUOTE ] The 'signal' is 'Not Under Command' - ie two balls. If you are going to anchor then the normal 'one ball' and flag 'yankee' will indicate 'I am dragging my anchor' if that starts happening.
 
My go;

Has no one thought of anchoring as best we can with motor going to check dragging, check forecast and put out securitee message to say where we are and repeat hourly?

Assuming that the anchor holds reasonably well, we are not in a mayday situation yet and a pan-pan is intended for specific request for assistance, not a 'one down from mayday'

So, we have bought a bit of time to calm down and sort ourselves out, we've alerted both coastguard and surrounding shipping of the situation while we get ourselves sorted and hopefully the weather calms down.

If this does become a Mayday situation then coastguard and shipping are aware of the situation and position already so lets not push the panic button and lose our vessel to soon.
 
Duncan,

You're assuming good holding, and hoping for your situation to improve. IF you do manage to buy time like this successfully, then what do you mean by "sort ourselves out"?

I know nothing about Belgian private outfits to recover boats, but I'd like to know whether or not specfic insurance is available against the need to use such services.
Probably cost as much as the recovery itself!

Alistair
 
anchored to the sea bed in effectively open water (NW) F6-7 wide against tide is not going to be that settling for the crew. hove too would probably prove better.

agree it is definitely a route but at the end of the day the skip here is going to have to make a call based on his position relative to the shallows (10 miles off them is a big difference to 1 mile).

depth of water, actual sea state, condition of crew mentally and physically and of course 'what's the weather doing next and how far into the flood tide are you? When the tide changes you are going to go SW fast!

At one extreme of these - crew top hole, lots of sea room, couple of hours of flood and light and a reasonably straight run into port I am going to experement with a sail balancing act and steering oar (Avalon style) advising CG of situation - at the other, crew physically and mentally stretched, little sea room to the shallows, tide changing shortly, light fading fast etc I am going to try the engine and see how this works with the heading the boat has initially settled on or get the anchor out on all the scope I have and declare a mayday - expecting to be able to come back out and recover the boat the next day (or when the weather permits)
 
What if the VHF is not working either?

Then you do have to do it yourself - no outside support etc.

I know my boat can go in a straight line by ballencing the sails BUT I have only done this in relatively light winds - certainly not tried it in a F7 (don't think I have ever sailed this boat in a F7).

Neil - thanks for getting the grey matter thinking. As I do a lot of single handed sailing I think I need a better plan for no rudder!
 
expecting was entirely the wrong word - hoping would be better.

this reflects a belief that it might not be there......which is why I left.
I also set out clearly that this would be on the basis of the crew being under the weather, etc etc etc - a page ago on here ago I took th eimplicit view that I had the sea room and crew capability to experement with sails/engine.jury rigs and got shot down for putting the crew at risk!

/forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif
 
rightyho.

Now just a minute just a minute. Pete dosn't *know* he has no steerage yet does he, hm? Well, it's not much been tested has it? If an external rudder falls off there wouldn't be any sign of it from inside the engine room where he checkd, would there? No. It might be perhaps that the ruder seen floating away was some other twat's rudder or just a much-more-common piece of rudder-sized wood. I'd check the steering a lot first of all, as i might have a *bit* of rudder left or even a whole one.

ok, it has fallen off. But even now, calling an overseas CG and they may likely come out whether you want them or not. Tallyyho! My experience is that they either ignore you OR theycall the shots - they aren't like the local friendly garage. They might even send the helichopter and insist you all get in. Thus risk losing the boat.

Thus unles there is risk to life (and there really isn't, not yet) i wd not call initially. I am in a fully floating thing with still two means of propulsion (sails and engine) and at least one means of stopping in moderately deep water (anchor). Then there's a dinghy perhaps with an engine, the possibilty of half-steerable boat with foresail and no main (so some power ahead of keel) all manner of whizzbang bodgeable amusements to try. That's all aside from good ole dependable TK who specifically offered to come out with his oars...

After a while we would have a clearer idea of what next. But calling an overseas CG whose powers over my boat i perhaps don't understand wd not be my very first move under those circs. Although if someone had placed the call well, it's insured i suppose.

Soon tho or first if v close to coast) and even with no useable steering, and ken still not arrived with those oars like he promised... and given we are in the genrally weedily-shallow channel, are we utterly sure we can't anchor? I bet we can, one way or another. need to chck charts of course but probly 10m under the keel would be enough for saftey, really. In fact there is a markd anchorage outsie Niewpoort too, 5metres plus tide.

Of course, it could be that Pete is utterly wise and not got a RYA-standard 25 foot sailing boat which invariably seem to be the ones that get into calamity what-now questions, in which case he mite be on a nice catamaran, flashes up the engines and goes into port nae problem.
 
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