How do you...

[Calvin Smith]

Picture- we are sailing along downwind being pushed by a 15 knot or so wind with the centerboard mostly up and hit bottom on a mudbank with the rudder. The rudder is now completely and unmovable locked in place by the force of the boat slowly making its way thur the mud. This just happened to me and I assume it has happened to others. I was forced to jump out into knee deep mud ( after releasing and dropping all sail) to give some ease to the rudder so the line holding it down could be released. I can easily visualize situations where this could have been a dangerous occurance rather than just embarassing. Is there some kind of better system out there for rudder control?

 

[EDWARD L SMITH]

I Wish I Had a Good Answer

but when that happened to me , I whipped out my river knife and cut the rope. I then had to hold the remaining rope by hand till I could get to a place to replace it. I have spare on the boat and an adjustable wrench. Usually the center board hits and I release the rudder and keep it down with hand pressure but you can't release it by hand when it is grounded.I first encoutered that in Corpus Christi on a sand bar in the middle of the Bay after which I purchased charts. That didn't completely solve it either.Good luck. We could use some input on this.

 

[Don Corcoran]

Been there, done it!

I just replaced my rudder "down" line as the same thing happened to me. After thinking about how I munged up the line at the clam cleat, I thought that the line is the weakest link on purpose. It takes all of the stress and cost me $1.47 to replace it. Pretty cheap compared to what it would have cost if the hardware took the stress.