So there we were, on only the second day out of the last 12 where we had enough good wind to sail. We were off Small Point, Maine sailing along at hull speed when all of a sudden I heard a clang, then a snap and the autopilot spinning like crazy.
So here's how it went down:
Me: Ah $hit we lost steering, and this was a great sail....:cussing:
Wife: What, is that bad?
Me: No, we're fine.
Me: Can you look for lobster pots and let me know of we get close to one so we don't tangle..
Wife: Sure.
Me: Looked 360 for other vessels then dropped sails in about 20 seconds flat.
I then proceeded to empty the lazarette, record time, about 15 seconds, climb in there and determine the failure. I knew it had to be the nuts on the eye bolts for the steering cable, and sure enough, it was.
The steering cable and chain are only a few years old, perfectly aligned and in perfect shape with no meat hooks. Actually, the second it happened I hearkened back to my frustration in not having a SS 3/8 X 24 fine threaded nyloc nut the day I last adjusted the steering. I reluctantly backed the two standard nuts together and then bought the fine threaded nuts but, d'oh
, never got around to installing them.. They lasted thousands of miles but finally gave up, and came loose..
What would have been easy, was if the AP was not on. I could have then re-attached the cable in about three - four minutes and been underway. Unfortunately the AP is a wheel pilot and it spun the chain right off the sprocket. This is a failure mode that requires removal of the compass, shifter mechanism etc. to gain access to the chain. Not something I wanted to do with an impending lee shore.
So I climb back out of the lazarette, head into the cabin and in 10 seconds am back with the emergency tiller. In another 30 seconds it is installed and we are again under way. We changed our intended destination and headed in to repair the steering cable.
What I Did Wrong:
1) I should have written a note and stuck it to the nav-desk to remind myself to replace one of the nuts on the eye bolt with a nylock nut to prevent it from ever backing off. This was my mistake. Despite Edson and others suggesting two "backed" nuts is fine, I have never felt comfortable with it and prefer a nylock nut or nylon insert nut. When I tightened them together it was really tight. It still came loose, after a few thousand miles. These steering systems have HUGE loads on them...
2) I should have listened to what my ears were telling me. I thought it odd that my AP was correcting so much in the 20-30 minutes before the steering failure. I always balance the boat before hitting the AUTO button so the AP does not work as hard. I attributed it to the confused sea, due to tidal outflow off the Kennebec River. In actuality the AP was correcting because the steering cables were getting loose.
3) While I had hand steered with the emergency tiller, during practice runs, I had never hand steered in a sea way with quartering or following seas. I should have. I do have a 4:1 block & tackle set up, for the emergency tiller, for extended use but this was 6 miles at best. Hand steering a 20,000 pound boat with a 16" lever/tiller is tiring work!!!!! My hand is still sore. This has caused me to go into emergency tiller re-design mode. I will add an aluminum extension that will get me over the steering pedestal and give me a lot more leverage.
What I Had Done Right:
1) I Knew the boat and knew not to panic. I did not think it was anything serious but we still lost steering.
2) I Knew where my emergency tiller was and had previously tested it, practiced with it, used it, and hand steered with it. I had also tested my actual time to deploy it and it was under one minute. This is good, especially if you are on a lee shore. It was specifically stowed for easy access meaning no moving piles of crap to get at it. The Beckson port covering the rudder post was well lubed with synthetic grease for a non-sticky easy opening. It worked perfectly. Once I decided to deploy the emergency tiller, we were back underway in about 60 seconds +/-...
3) We were passing the Sheepscot and Kennebec Rivers which have MASSIVE drain tides where even 4+ miles off the coast lobster buoys are still sucked under. With an out-flowing tide and the prevailing SW wind the standing waves, even miles off the coast, can be three to four times the size of the normal sea state. We no longer like to pass inside Seguin Island as it is strewn with ledges, sucked under lobster pot buoys, nasty current and short steep standing waves on the right tide.. One mistake passing through here and you are on rocks pretty quickly.
Despite it being a rather calm day, with only about 10-12 knots of wind, I still chose to pass outside of Seguin Island. This gave us plenty of sea room and gave us plenty of time to address an issue before we had to worry about a lee shore. Small Point, ME is not a shore you want to be drifting into.
4) I had torn into my steering system and basically preemptively rebuilt it. I knew it was in fine shape and this helps one not get skittish when you have a failure. My wife was surprised at how calm I was, and nonchalant. "Christ you get more upset when someone spills a beer.."... It helped keep her calm.
5) We had the ability to change plans and course.
6) When I did re-build the steering system I left "alignment marks" on the center of the steering chain and on the rudder stuffing box and rudder post. This made putting it all back together super simple and the system was put back together and perfectly aligned in under 20 minutes. Thanks to the centering mark on the chain, red sharpie marker, I was able to avoid disconnecting the shifting mechanisms. I simple centered my wheel, locked it with the brake, then placed the link with the centering mark over the sprocket. If I had not done this the entire chain would have needed to have been pulled up to where I could see where it meets the cable to "center it" on the sprocket. This would have entailed much more time. From the time we hit the harbor until the time the last cushion was put back into place and cocktail ice flowed was 19 minutes. If I had not made those marks it would have been a considerably more tedious process.
7) I had all the tools and parts on-board to make the necessary repairs, including the new nuts I bought but had never installed. We have not had a break down that incapacitated us since 1994 and that was on a power boat.. This was the first one and it only took us slightly out of our way and burned about 30 minutes of actual "fix it" time.
More Musings:
I initially bought the Raymrine S1G wheel pilot because the wheel drive was basically free. The "core pack"(display, course computer, rudder position sensor, fluxgate) is what I was after.
I figured the wheel drive would be toast in a year and I would then install the below deck unit when it failed.. Well here we are 6 years and many thousands of miles later the wheel drive continues to steer a boat about 4000 pounds heavier than it should. When it dies I will install a below deck drive.
Because we still have the wheel drive any failure in the chain, cable, idler pulleys, radial drive or main steering system also incapacitates the autopilot. With most well installed below deck drive systems you can still steer via the AP, with a failure like ours. This is a nice feature that a wheel pilot leaves you without.
Check your steering cables and make sure the nuts are tight. If they are not nyloc then I would check that they are sufficiently "backed" against each other at least bi-yearly.. If you can, install a new nyloc nut on the eye bolt. IMHO nyloc nuts are a one time use. Unfortunately for me I have boxes of 3/8" X 16 nylocs but never stock any 3/8" X 24 thread... The nuts that worked loose on us were standard nuts for the eye bolts through the radial drive.
$hit happens so, have a plan!
So here's how it went down:
Me: Ah $hit we lost steering, and this was a great sail....:cussing:
Wife: What, is that bad?
Me: No, we're fine.
Me: Can you look for lobster pots and let me know of we get close to one so we don't tangle..
Wife: Sure.
Me: Looked 360 for other vessels then dropped sails in about 20 seconds flat.
I then proceeded to empty the lazarette, record time, about 15 seconds, climb in there and determine the failure. I knew it had to be the nuts on the eye bolts for the steering cable, and sure enough, it was.
The steering cable and chain are only a few years old, perfectly aligned and in perfect shape with no meat hooks. Actually, the second it happened I hearkened back to my frustration in not having a SS 3/8 X 24 fine threaded nyloc nut the day I last adjusted the steering. I reluctantly backed the two standard nuts together and then bought the fine threaded nuts but, d'oh
, never got around to installing them.. They lasted thousands of miles but finally gave up, and came loose..What would have been easy, was if the AP was not on. I could have then re-attached the cable in about three - four minutes and been underway. Unfortunately the AP is a wheel pilot and it spun the chain right off the sprocket. This is a failure mode that requires removal of the compass, shifter mechanism etc. to gain access to the chain. Not something I wanted to do with an impending lee shore.
So I climb back out of the lazarette, head into the cabin and in 10 seconds am back with the emergency tiller. In another 30 seconds it is installed and we are again under way. We changed our intended destination and headed in to repair the steering cable.
What I Did Wrong:
1) I should have written a note and stuck it to the nav-desk to remind myself to replace one of the nuts on the eye bolt with a nylock nut to prevent it from ever backing off. This was my mistake. Despite Edson and others suggesting two "backed" nuts is fine, I have never felt comfortable with it and prefer a nylock nut or nylon insert nut. When I tightened them together it was really tight. It still came loose, after a few thousand miles. These steering systems have HUGE loads on them...
2) I should have listened to what my ears were telling me. I thought it odd that my AP was correcting so much in the 20-30 minutes before the steering failure. I always balance the boat before hitting the AUTO button so the AP does not work as hard. I attributed it to the confused sea, due to tidal outflow off the Kennebec River. In actuality the AP was correcting because the steering cables were getting loose.
3) While I had hand steered with the emergency tiller, during practice runs, I had never hand steered in a sea way with quartering or following seas. I should have.
I do have a 4:1 block & tackle set up, for the emergency tiller, for extended use but this was 6 miles at best. Hand steering a 20,000 pound boat with a 16" lever/tiller is tiring work!!!!! My hand is still sore. This has caused me to go into emergency tiller re-design mode. I will add an aluminum extension that will get me over the steering pedestal and give me a lot more leverage.What I Had Done Right:
1) I Knew the boat and knew not to panic. I did not think it was anything serious but we still lost steering.
2) I Knew where my emergency tiller was and had previously tested it, practiced with it, used it, and hand steered with it. I had also tested my actual time to deploy it and it was under one minute. This is good, especially if you are on a lee shore. It was specifically stowed for easy access meaning no moving piles of crap to get at it. The Beckson port covering the rudder post was well lubed with synthetic grease for a non-sticky easy opening. It worked perfectly. Once I decided to deploy the emergency tiller, we were back underway in about 60 seconds +/-...
3) We were passing the Sheepscot and Kennebec Rivers which have MASSIVE drain tides where even 4+ miles off the coast lobster buoys are still sucked under. With an out-flowing tide and the prevailing SW wind the standing waves, even miles off the coast, can be three to four times the size of the normal sea state. We no longer like to pass inside Seguin Island as it is strewn with ledges, sucked under lobster pot buoys, nasty current and short steep standing waves on the right tide.. One mistake passing through here and you are on rocks pretty quickly.
Despite it being a rather calm day, with only about 10-12 knots of wind, I still chose to pass outside of Seguin Island. This gave us plenty of sea room and gave us plenty of time to address an issue before we had to worry about a lee shore. Small Point, ME is not a shore you want to be drifting into.
4) I had torn into my steering system and basically preemptively rebuilt it. I knew it was in fine shape and this helps one not get skittish when you have a failure. My wife was surprised at how calm I was, and nonchalant. "Christ you get more upset when someone spills a beer.."... It helped keep her calm.
5) We had the ability to change plans and course.
6) When I did re-build the steering system I left "alignment marks" on the center of the steering chain and on the rudder stuffing box and rudder post. This made putting it all back together super simple and the system was put back together and perfectly aligned in under 20 minutes. Thanks to the centering mark on the chain, red sharpie marker, I was able to avoid disconnecting the shifting mechanisms. I simple centered my wheel, locked it with the brake, then placed the link with the centering mark over the sprocket. If I had not done this the entire chain would have needed to have been pulled up to where I could see where it meets the cable to "center it" on the sprocket. This would have entailed much more time. From the time we hit the harbor until the time the last cushion was put back into place and cocktail ice flowed was 19 minutes. If I had not made those marks it would have been a considerably more tedious process.
7) I had all the tools and parts on-board to make the necessary repairs, including the new nuts I bought but had never installed.
We have not had a break down that incapacitated us since 1994 and that was on a power boat.. This was the first one and it only took us slightly out of our way and burned about 30 minutes of actual "fix it" time.More Musings:
I initially bought the Raymrine S1G wheel pilot because the wheel drive was basically free. The "core pack"(display, course computer, rudder position sensor, fluxgate) is what I was after.
I figured the wheel drive would be toast in a year and I would then install the below deck unit when it failed.. Well here we are 6 years and many thousands of miles later the wheel drive continues to steer a boat about 4000 pounds heavier than it should. When it dies I will install a below deck drive.
Because we still have the wheel drive any failure in the chain, cable, idler pulleys, radial drive or main steering system also incapacitates the autopilot. With most well installed below deck drive systems you can still steer via the AP, with a failure like ours. This is a nice feature that a wheel pilot leaves you without.
Check your steering cables and make sure the nuts are tight. If they are not nyloc then I would check that they are sufficiently "backed" against each other at least bi-yearly.. If you can, install a new nyloc nut on the eye bolt. IMHO nyloc nuts are a one time use. Unfortunately for me I have boxes of 3/8" X 16 nylocs but never stock any 3/8" X 24 thread... The nuts that worked loose on us were standard nuts for the eye bolts through the radial drive.
$hit happens so, have a plan!
