Before reading on, please take a moment to fill out this week’s survey so we can share your knowledge and experiences with the Cruising Compass family. Thanks.
Have you had or do you plan to have you boat’s topsides painted?
Many thanks to everyone who took the time to comment on how you steered your boat without the rudder. Your solutions show just how resourceful cruising sailors can be. Quiter a few simply steered with their emergency tillers or with their windvanes’ auxiliary rudders. But many had to be really creative.
Did not “have” to, but spent an afternoon sailing in moderate winds with the rudder lashed amidships on a sloop Tacking was a challenge involving backwinding the jib, but a well balanced boat can do most all else by picking the placement of your sails.
Steered with our Hydrovane windvane’s auxiliary rudder.
But lowering the bent rudder shaft by 2 inches and drilling the quadrant mounting bolts higher
Ketch rigged, was able to balance the rig and proceed to port
Used the wind and forward and reverse to get over to an end tie.
It was actually a broken steering cable. We have a catamaran so I used both engines to control the direction to get us back to the dock.
Sail trim and dragging warps
With no rudder on a Southerly 34R, we were unable to steer in 6’ waves and 20+ kts of wind. We called the USCG before being blown ashore in NJ.
By focusing on main and Genoa trim which is a constant struggle with seas. We managed to sail 280 miles and finish the Bermuda race.
Portion of floorboard lashed/riveted to spinnaker pole.
Only for a couple of hours when rudder linkage became disconnected in lumpy tidal waters then was repaired. Reefed main to ease steering and used the wind vane steering gear’s semi balanced rudder to hand steer and continue on passage. This was the original Windpilot, a simpler version of the Hydrovane.
towing a large warp of line to create drag, and shifting it from side to side
I managed to steer with the emmergency tiller but only under power. The short tiller (to clear the wheel pedestal) didn’t have enough leverage to steer under sail.
Bigger boat … had two engines. Leveraged the engines RPMs to steer.
Bigger boat … had two engines. Leveraged the engines RPMs to steer.
Outboard rudder. Tiller accessed the rudder through the transom. Lost the rudder. Used long oar through the aperture.
Hardly noticed. I spent many days trying to figure out why the auto pilot was making an S track. Finally discovered one rudder blade was missing. Cats can be sailed almost normally with just one….
Was able to lash a paddle to the remaining rudder section. Not a good option but it got us home!
