Steering with sails - fin keel, no rudder

[Al - s/v Persephone]

Like many winter landlubbers, I have too much non-sailing time on my hands and have been thinking about goals for the spring season.

In past seasons, I have spent a (very) little effort learning to steer Persephone by changing sail trim, and thought that improving that skill might be a good goal for the list.

However, once I thought about what situations it might prepare me to deal with, I realized that loss of my very large spade rudder would mean loss of about a third of my underwater plane area.

Has anyone here ever steered a modern, fin keel boat by sail trim after losing a rudder?

Fair winds,
Al

 

[Ross]

Just thinking about what it would do the the center of lateral resistance gives me the shakes.

 

[Marty A]

Realistically, your options in this case are going to be very limited. It's one thing to steer with sails when the foil is still there, another entirely if the foil dissapears.

I'd guess that if you drag a drouge of some kind (extra anchor, loop of line, spare sail, something?) and use the sails you can probably manage to keep something of a course between a broad reach and a run, but I'd highly doubt anything closer to the wind would be sustainable.

 

[Tim R.]

Use a single drogue attached to 2 lines, one each on port and stbd winches. Equal force makes you go straight, pull in line on the side you want to turn to.

Steering with sails can also be done on many boats but each one is different and impossible to pratice the proper trim for no rudder as you still have one.

 

[Benny]

When loosing a rudder your best option is to call your preferred tow service provider. Steering by sails and drogues is a last resort manuever when offshore to get you close enough to any land so you may call for a tow. As far as practice do not worry as you will have plenty of time to hone your skills on your erratic way back.

 

[Franklin]

and don't forget to try to build a temporary rudder using floorboards or cabinate doors. I would think if you could do that along with the other ideas, you could get it there.

 

[Roger Long]

and don't forget to try to build a temporary rudder using floorboards or cabinate doors. I would think if you could do that along with the other ideas, you could get it there.

Cape Horn wind vanes sells emergency rudders that connect to their wind vane towers. On my "to do " list is pre-drilling some berth bin boards and making a stock and tiller that can be assembled and lashed to the windvane tower. I don't have room for a completely assembled emergency rudder.

 

[chuckwayne]

Hi Al!
Mike Harker lost his rudder during his circumnav and was able to make a workable backup using a spinnaker pole with a cabin door and some spare blocks. I'm not sure if it's in the excerpts on the Hunter site or not, but I talked with him at newport last fall and it seemed doable, but advance prep would be a really good idea-the stresses on the jury rig were really huge. He was fortunate in having a spinn pole on board-those of us with assym chutes would be out of luck.

 

[soulesailor]

Those of us without any cabin doors would be out of luck too!

 

[Bill Roosa]

Emergency rudder

I'm with Roger, Franklin and chuckwayne. Figure out what you have aboard that can be pressed into service. The basics would seem to be:

A foil (sole boards, locker doors, dingy rudder..)

A pole or some other way to deploy the foil (spinnaker or whisker pole, dingy oar, dingy mast...)

Lashings to tie it all together or the preplanned hardware because you took the time to drill some holes and buy some bolts(dock lines, ...)

A fulcrum

Control lines (this one may or may not be required depending on the leverage you can get with your pole and who well you can steer with the sails you may only need a fixed arrangement to stabilize the boat)(spring lines...)

Blocks etc for routing the control line (vang hardware, ...)


Certainly something you could/should think through before you need to.

I would try a drogue as a second option since it is going to slow your progress toward salvation.

With all that said: The CLR would move well forward of its normal position so to stay balanced you will be preferring the jib and using the main/traveler to steer with I would presume. This is not something most of us are going to "go practice" so we can only guess. Perhaps Roger's stability site will have a chapter