It was just before 0700 on April 26, some hundred miles southeast of Tampa Bay, Florida, aboard John Hamm’s formidable Hylas 54, Split Decision. An hour earlier, I’d come on watch as the powerful cutter roared south under full sail in a solid easterly hovering between 20 and 25 knots, with the occasional higher gust. The seas were confused, bumpy and building, and nobody was particularly interested in breakfast. 

Still, the autopilot was handling everything nicely (competing in the Regata del Sol al Sol’s Cruising Class, auto-helms were permissible). I was perched by the wheel, taking it all in, when silently, unexpectedly, Split Decision rounded up hard to weather. The sails flapped wildly. What the hell? was my first thought. 

Little did I know that the next 17 hours were going to be very, um, interesting. 

We had departed St. Petersburg, Florida, the previous morning bound for Isla Mujeres, Mexico, as part of the 18-boat fleet in this biennial 470-mile Gulf of Mexico distance race that skirts the west coast of Cuba. I’d done the race once before and totally enjoyed it, so when the opportunity to crew on Split Decision ­presented itself, I was all in.

I’d joined a fun, experienced crew of racing sailors from the notable St. Petersburg Yacht Club. They were led by skipper Hamm, who completed a circumnavigation with his family some 20 years ago (Hamm’s brother, Chris, a professional mariner from San Diego, rounded out the six-man team). To say that Split Decision was exquisitely prepared is an understatement. Hamm had compiled a small library of instructional manuals that he’d written over the years on safety, systems, weather and operations that lined the shelves of his navigation station. It was impressive stuff.

On a prerace haulout several months earlier, Hamm had determined that there was water in the rudder. The Hylas service office in Fort Lauderdale recommended the following course of action: Drain it and dry it, make sure there is no rust, and seal it all back up. 

“We followed their ­recommendations,” Hamm said after our adventure. “I am sure if there had been a concern on their part about the integrity of the rudder, they would have suggested we replace it. They never did hint about needing a replacement.”

So, off we went.

The forecast was favorable, if a bit sporty: light airs for the morning start, a building sea breeze in the afternoon, and then a strong easterly filling in just before midnight. It all unfolded precisely as predicted. The conditions couldn’t really have been better, and we were all looking forward to a sleigh ride of a port-tack power reach all the way to Mexico. 

Which is what everyone else got to enjoy. In fact, new race speed records were established in the Racer/Cruiser and Multihull divisions.

We, in an instant, had no steerage. 

I put the autopilot on standby, took the wheel, and tried to get us back on course. It required a bit of effort to do so, after which I switched the self-steering back on. 

Seconds later, Split Decision again spun out of control. “You’d better get your brother up,” I told Chris. 

Hamm had no better luck than I did. 

Now what? It was 140 nautical miles to Key West, 91 to Charlotte Harbor and 108 to the Manatee River, just outside the entrance to Tampa Bay. The problem was, they were all to varying degrees upwind, and if we couldn’t get on top of the situation, we were going to get blown to Texas.

Luckily, we had a brand-new Starlink unit aboard, and crewman Christian Bergstrom took over as comms officer. His first call was to the event organizers. Our race was officially over.

Next, he reached out to all the various commercial towing outfits along the coast, none of which were interested in heading offshore in sketchy weather and a small-craft warning. 

He then contacted the US Coast Guard to apprise them of our situation, and received an offer to send a helicopter to snatch us off, which of course wasn’t an actual option. But they also said they’d send out a boat to tow us in the final miles if we still had steering issues as we approached the shoreline. That was much appreciated. The Manatee River made the most sense, so we swapped the genoa for the staysail and (sort of) pointed Split Decision’s bow in that general direction. 

We collectively surmised that the rudder cables had jumped the quadrant, which was, unfortunately, under the big berth in the aft cabin. Tearing everything apart to have a look in a somewhat violent seaway was in nobody’s interest. Instead, Hamm dug out and set up the emergency tiller, then led a pair of lines to the cockpit winches. 

At this stage, I was back on the wheel and could more or less scribe a wandering course some 30 to 40 degrees left or right of where we actually wished to go. It was maddening, to say the least. Chris set himself up alongside the winch, and when I really lost it, he’d give a quick, sharp tug on the emergency tiller to give me a bit of control. To be honest, it was more akin to sculling than steering, but at least we were heading home. 

It was now pretty apparent that it wasn’t a quadrant issue, but that we’d lost a good portion of the rudder. 

This went on for many, many, many hours.

It was after midnight as we motorsailed the final miles to Tampa Bay. It turned out that upping the rpm gave us better steerage, but there was no way we could directly drive into the Manatee River anchorage. Bergstrom had been in regular contact with the Coast Guard, and true to their word, they sent out a big RIB with a professional crew to tow us the final miles. The tariff? A full inspection once the hook was down. Of course, Split Decision passed with flying colors. After that, at 0300, a bottle of rum made a welcome appearance. 

A while later, Hamm’s curiosity got the better of him, and he plunged into the river to have a look. Which is when he discovered that most of the rudder was missing. I still can’t believe that I didn’t feel or hear anything at the time, basically perched right above the thing. A mystery, indeed. 

Naval architect Gerry Douglas is a mutual friend of Hamm’s and mine, and had hooked me up with Split Decision in the first place. In his former role as chief designer at Catalina Yachts, he’d been especially interested in the hows and whys of rudder failures. When I checked in with him after the race, he was interested in learning more.

Several weeks later, Hamm sent me this update: “Gerry and I met at the boat, and two items came out of that meeting. One was [that] the large 5-inch stainless reinforcement did not appear to be 316 stainless as specified on the drawings from the designer. We think it was stainless, but some lower grade (maybe 304), because when we applied a large magnet to it, there was a small attraction, which would never happen with 316 stainless. The rudder shaft is 316 and had no attraction to the magnet. Gerry’s theory is that the rudder was weakened by water intrusion. He believes once a rudder has water in it, it will get water in it again and it will have some level of weakening due to corrosion. I am not sure if that was or was not a contributing factor on my rudder failure.   

“When the boat was pulled out of the water, the reinforcement stainless was very clean, and was bent and twisted. It now has a little bit of surface rust after being out of the water for five weeks. FYI, upon closer inspection, we found streaks which removed bottom paint and dug lightly into the bulb on the bottom of the keel. With the new bottom job just a few weeks before the race, there should have been no streaks in the paint. Speculation by some of the crew is that we may have hit a net of some kind that dragged under the keel and then hung on the rudder, causing it to break. Who really knows? Lots of speculation here!”

All I do know is that I never got to sip that first cold Corona on a beach near Cancún. I ended up back home with just another sea story and a sad case of the lost rudder blues.

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There are countless stories about yachts ­abandoned at sea because they lost their steering or rudder. It’s a ­possible contingency that should be anticipated before ­heading offshore. Boats that have wheel steering should be equipped with an emergency tiller that has been tested and works. Too many ­emergency tillers are useless. Test your emergency tiller in heavy air, not only sailing to windward, but also on a broad reach and dead downwind, two points of sail that require a lot of steering.

Tiller Tales

The inadequacy of emergency tillers was brought home to me early in my career as a delivery skipper. I was delivering a 40-foot sloop, with a short keel but an attached rudder, from Grenada to Fort Lauderdale via St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. About 50 miles west of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the hydraulic-steering system packed up so we were forced to use emergency steering to San Salvador, in the Bahamas the first island we figured we could find a harbor.

We installed the ­emergency tiller, but it was not well ­designed. It was simply not strong enough and collapsed after about five hours. I found that the biggest socket in the socket set would fit on the rudder head, and a block and tackle on the wrench handle led to a winch gave us enough control to sail her 400 miles to San Salvador Island where we stopped and rebuilt the emergency ­tiller. Sometimes you need to go with what you got.

Contrast that to the tale of Pixie, a 54-foot Gardner-designed, ketch-rigged ­motorsailer. We were on another delivery, from St. Croix to Fort Lauderdale, when on the second day out once again the hydraulic steering failed. But it was no problem as Gardner had designed a proper emergency tiller. Pixie had a center cockpit and a large ­after deck. We simply undid a deck plate, moved a cushion in the aft-cabin bunk, dropped the emergency tiller through the deck plate onto the rudder head, and we were all set. As the tiller was a full 6 feet long, we had plenty of leverage. As seen in the accompanying photos from the 2019 Boat of the Year tests, many contemporary production cruisers have emergency tillers as well thought out as Pixie‘s.

One common ­problem, ­particularly with many ­older vessels, is that many ­extended emergency tillers are ­designed to pass over the top of the wheel. This arrangement may look good on paper, but when you try to use it in heavy weather, especially going downwind, it doesn’t work. The problem is that the ­tiller must have some height to clear the wheel, but because of its accompanying short ­lever arm, there’s not enough torque or leverage for it to be effective.

Contemporary yachts, of course, are very beamy and they carry that beam well aft, which means extremely wide sterns. I think many ­designers are missing an opportunity on these boats to create a ­better emergency tiller. Because they’re so wide, why not employ a T-shaped ­tiller? (There were ­examples of T-shaped emergency ­tillers in the Boat of the Year ­testing, but I’m thinking about one that would extend ­farther abeam.) It would be ­easier to ­fabricate with a longer lever arm extended port and ­starboard. If control was an issue, two people could steer, one to either side. You’d ­probably want the “arms” of the T to be ­easily removable for ­storage. One thing you already see on some modern boats is an emergency tiller pointed abaft the rudder head. This solves the problem of conflicting with the wheel and pedestal.

On cable-steering systems, the most common ­failure, naturally, is broken cables. Replacing steering cables at sea is difficult, but not impossible. Superyacht ­skipper Billy Porter told me a ­story with advice useful to any cruiser. Porter was a veteran of the Royal Navy who crewed aboard a yacht in a round-the-world race that entered as part of the service’s sail-training program. The crew figured sometime in the Southern Ocean, after thousands of miles of downwind sailing, a steering cable would break and they’d lose steering. When that happened, they planned to round up, drop the spinnaker, hoist the staysail and trim the boat so it hove to. Then they could make repairs.

Halfway to Cape Horn, that exact scenario unfolded. The crewman designated to steering controls — everyone had a specific duty — dove down below to address the ­problem. The rest of the crew ­reckoned it would take hours to do the job. But 20 minutes ­later, the crewman popped out of the hatch and said, “New ­cable installed and tensioned, get underway.” Everyone was amazed and asked how he did it so quickly. It turned out that during his time in port, he stayed aboard and set his alarm for midnight each night to practice changing a cable. The first time took three hours, but he soon learned to assemble all the required tools and different lengths of spare cables near the ­lazarette. Each night he got quicker and more efficient, so when there ­actually was an ­emergency, he was ready. The point is, for those heading offshore, it’s ­worthwhile to try ­replacing a steering cable in port — ­before setting out.

Lost Rudders

Another common characteristic of modern designs is spade rudders. Again, in recent times we’ve heard too many stories of crews abandoning boats in midocean because they completely lost a rudder that either dropped because of a ­structural issue or because it hit something. Scanmar International is one of the few companies that builds dedicated emergency rudders. The firm’s M-Rud unit works in conjunction with its Monitor windvane, and its SOS Emergency rudder is a stand-alone system worth investigating.

If you do lose a rudder, and you are not carrying a ­specific emergency rudder, my advice is not to waste any time trying to rig a spinnaker pole with a door secured to it as a rudder. I have heard and read about dozens of sailors who have tried this rig, and it simply does not work.

A more successful tactic was employed by the crew of the Dutch 55-footer Olivier van Noort in the 1953 Fastnet Race. After rounding Fastnet Rock, the boat lost its ­rudder. The crew responded by­ rigging a spinnaker pole across the deck and running lines through blocks secured to the ends of the pole’s port- and starboard-side that were attached to a drogue streamed astern. With the lines led to winches, the crew was able to manipulate the drogue to steer the boat.

I’ve heard a similar story from yacht designer Bill Tripp, who was aboard one of his own 60-footers when it lost a rudder on a race 60 miles north of Nassau, Bahamas. That crew didn’t use a spinnaker pole, but they did deploy a drogue that was “­triangulated” by lines led directly to ­winches. In a ­northerly breeze, they had some success, but ­ultimately were more ­successful a­fter ­setting a staysail (with no main). The drogue kept the stern ­directly behind the bow, and the crew was able to fine-tune their course by ­trimming the staysail to control the ­direction of the bow. And they made it safely to Nassau.

Likewise, the Rhode Island-based Keyworth brothers, Mike and Ken, have been able to tightly control the Swan 44, Chasseur — ­also without a wheel or rudder — by ­employing a 30-inch Galerider storm drogue with a double-reefed main and just enough of the genoa unfurled to fill the foretriangle. To rig their drogue, the Keyworths led spinnaker lines from the drogue forward to a pair of snatch blocks set amidships, then aft to ­cockpit winches. In all these cases, there was a lot of experimentation with sails and line placement for the drogues before finding a workable solution. But solutions were found.

Never underestimate the option of just using your sails if the breeze is favorable. With the wind abeam or forward of abeam, depending on the vessel, many good sailors can steer a boat using sails alone. Yes, it’s easier on a ketch or yawl, which have more options, than it is on a sloop or cutter, but it’s possible with any rig. That said, a cutter with a staysail as well as a jib is easier to steer under sail alone than a single-­headsail sloop. Once the wind goes abaft the beam, it’s time to switch to the drogue.

To sum up, for resourceful sailors, a loss of steering or a rudder should not ­necessarily be regarded as a ­complete ­disaster. If well prepared, with well-practiced routines and the proper gear onboard, they could just be a major inconvenience!

Don Street is a legendary sailor, author and voyager, and a frequent contributor to Cruising World. His seminal book, The Ocean Sailing Yacht (volumes 1 and 2), was originally published in 1974 but remains a valuable ­resource to this day, and can be ­ordered online from Amazon and other outlets.

The post Sailboat Emergency Steering appeared first on Cruising World.

Rusty Rudder

Many conscientious cruisers aren’t sure when they should unship their sailboat rudder for inspection and what they should look for when they do. Like so many aspects of boat ownership, there are few hard and fast rules. Those based on the calendar or the number of miles traveled don’t take into account the design, construction materials, and climate or the preventive maintenance that’s already been carried out. Reliable steering, of course, is always a priority, but for vessels that venture offshore, the standard must necessarily be higher; rudder failure at sea can result in catastrophe.

A thorough inspection of the sailboat rudder while it’s in place can often yield clues to whether removal is the right approach. In many cases, the only portion of the rudder that can’t be easily inspected is the stock, where it passes through the trunk or log. Depending upon the design, removing the stuffing box from the trunk may enable the inspection of much of the stock, particularly where corrosion is most likely to occur, at the stuffing box’s packing. Here, wet packing remains in contact with the stock, which is nearly always a stainless-steel alloy. If the vessel remains dormant for long periods, as far too many do, the oxygen in the water contained within the trunk becomes depleted, which can lead to crevice corrosion of the stock, and this nearly always occurs directly beneath the packing or, if one is present, beneath a bearing.

| |The rudder’s stock-to-bearing interface should be inspected for excessive play or signs of rust, corrosion, or bearing debris.|

The area where the stock enters the blade is also worthy of close inspection. Mating such disparate materials as stainless steel and FRP or fiberglass produces a tenuous hold at best. In most cases, the bond between the two begins to separate early on in a rudder’s life; it’s a process that’s nearly unavoidable. Over time, water will often work its way down between these two components; if it’s a skeg-hung rudder, it may work up from the bottom. Once in this void, the oxygen in the water is depleted, once again becoming an ideal environment for crevice corrosion. And if the rudder’s armature, the metallic framework that supports the blade, is made from mild steel, as many are, then it, too, is susceptible to good old-fashioned oxidation or rust.

As disconcerting as this sounds, the good news is that telltale signs often indicate when trouble lurks beneath an otherwise seemingly unblemished FRP skin. Brown, rust-like stains are the product of crevice corrosion and rusting mild steel, and when you spot them on or beneath a sailboat rudder, they’re always cause for concern.

It’s possible to stem or retard entering water by caulking the interface between the stock and the FRP blade. Most polyurethane sealants won’t adhere to stainless steel for very long, so it may become a seasonal process; however, the effort is minimal, and the reward potentially great.

If the stock, blade, or supporting hardware, gudgeons, pintles, or hinges show any signs of deterioration, excessive wear, or corrosion (verdigris, the green patina taken on by copper alloys, is normal and no cause for concern), the rudder should then be unshipped for closer inspection and possible surgery. In the majority of cases, rudders can be repaired to sail another day. However, if obvious signs of distress are ignored, the resultant issues will often become terminal.

For fiberglass rudders, begin by inspecting the visible portion of the stock, between the blade and the hull. Are there signs of rust, corrosion, or pitting? If so, it’s time to remove the foil for a closer look.

Steve D’Antonio offers services for boat owners and buyers through Steve D’Antonio Marine Consulting.

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