By Don Street
Editor’s note: A familiar problem to those who spend time aboard seagoing boats was addressed in the October Caribbean Compass more than a decade ago by two legends. Thanks again to Chris Doyle and the late Don Street. Happy sailing to you both, one on the blue waters of the Caribbean and the other on that vast, far-off ocean and that distant port to which the only customs and immigration declaration is a life well lived.
Steering loss all too often results in abandoning ship. Under some circumstances, this is perhaps the wisest course of action. But at other times, the ability to use an emergency tiller, replace a broken steering cable, or steer using the sails and/or a drogue, can result in a successfully completed passage.
Emergency Tillers
The inadequacy of many 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 attached rudder from Grenada to Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, via St. Thomas. About 50 miles west of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the hydraulic steering system packed up. We installed the emergency tiller but it was neither well designed nor strong and collapsed after about five hours. I discovered that the biggest socket in the socket wrench set would fit on the rudder head. A tackle on the wrench handle led to a winch which gave us enough control to sail her 400 miles to San Salvador in the Bahamas, where we stopped and rebuilt the emergency tiller.
Atlantica, a 46-foot, Stevens-designed gaff-rigged schooner, also had an emergency tiller which, we discovered when we tested it, was really useless. The lever arm was only three feet long and, typical of gaff-rigged schooners, on a reach (because of the gaff falling off as sheets are eased), Atlantica had heavy weather helm. An hour on the helm and the helmsman’s arms had been stretched so much he looked like an orangutan. The emergency tiller was made out of pipe, so we made a wooden extension that fitted into the end to create an eight-foot lever arm.
(As an aside, by the time we had reached Bermuda on that delivery we had learned to trim the gaff vangs that we had rigged, so that the twist was completely removed from the main and fore when sheets were eased. This removed the weather helm to the point that my daughter Dory, age 11, could stand a one-hour helm watch.)
In contrast was our experience aboard Pixie, a 54-foot Gardner-designed, ketch-rigged motorsailer that we were delivering from St. Croix to Ft. Lauderdale. The second day out, the hydraulic steering failed. However, it was no problem as Gardner had designed a proper emergency tiller. Pixie had a midship cockpit, so there was a large poop deck. We undid a deck plate, lifted a cushion on the aft cabin bunk, dropped the emergency tiller through the deck plate onto the rudder head, and we were all set. The tiller was a full six feet long, giving us plenty of leverage.
Almost all emergency tillers are designed to pass over the wheel steering stand. This arrangement looks good on paper but when you try to use it in heavy weather, especially going downwind, because of the height of the tiller, it does not work.
Today, most boats are so wide that a better arrangement would be to make the emergency tiller in a T going across the boat. This would be much easier to make and give a longer lever arm, plus, being in a T, two people could steer, one on port side, the other on the starboard side. The arms of the T should be made removable to facilitate easy storage of the tiller.
If the boat has a long stern, a centerline tiller can be installed with the tiller going aft from the rudder head.
In any case, have an emergency tiller that you know works. Before a passage, go out in heavy weather and test your emergency tiller, not only going to windward, but also on a broad reach and dead downwind, two points of sailing that require a lot of steering.
Steering Cables
On cable steering systems the most common failure is broken cables. Replacing steering cables at sea is difficult, but not impossible. Megayacht skipper Billy Porter started his career in the Royal Navy as a teenager and retired as chief warrant officer after running the Royal Navy sail-training establishment. He tells the story of Great Britain II in a round-the-world race with only one stop.
The crew were all from the Royal Navy sailing program. They figured that on a race of this length, with thousands of miles sailing downwind in the Roaring Forties, they would have a steering cable break. When this happened, the boat would round up, the spinnaker would be doused, staysail hoisted, staysail main and mizzen trimmed so the boat would lie hove to until the broken cable could be replaced. One crewmember was told to get all the gear and spare cables assembled so that when the time came, he could replace the broken cable.
Inevitably, a steering cable broke and all went according to plan. The designated crewmember dove below to replace it, and the rest of the crew felt it would take him two or three hours to do the job. But 20 minutes later he popped out of the hatch and said, “New cable installed and tensioned; get underway!”
How did he do the job so fast? When Great Britain II was in port the crew lived ashore, but one crewmember always stayed on board as watchman. The crewmember who was in charge of the steering cables reported that every time he had the watchman duty, he would set his alarm for 2400; the minute the alarm went off he would dive into the lazarette and change a cable. The first time it took him almost three hours but each time he changed a cable he reduced the time necessary. He assembled all the tools he needed, stored them in the lazarette, and secured the spare cables there so that they were easy to run once he pulled the broken cable.
For those who are doing long passages with cable steering, it is worthwhile to try replacing a steering cable in port before going to sea.
Rudder Loss
Now that the vast majority of boats built in the last ten years have spade rudders, losing a rudder entirely by hitting something, or by having the rudder drop out, has become a common enough occurrence that in South Africa there is a company that makes emergency rudders specifically designed for your boat, which can be disassembled for storage until needed.
But if you do not have an emergency rudder, do not waste time trying to rig a spinnaker pole with a door secured to it. I have heard and read about dozens of sailors who have tried this rig and it does not work.
Olivier van Noort, aboard a 55-foot cutter designed and built by De Vries Lentsch, lost her rudder in the 1953 Fastnet Race shortly after rounding Fastnet Rock. She rigged her spinnaker pole across the deck, ran lines through blocks secured to the ends of the pole, port and starboard. They were attached to a drogue streamed astern and led to winches. They were able to sail the all the way back to Plymouth.
The late famous yacht designer Doug Petersen reported that halfway between California and Hawaii a very beamy one-tonner he designed lost her rudder. They sailed all the way to Hawaii using the same rig as Olivier van Noort but the one-tonner was so beamy they just led lines port and starboard through blocks secured to the rail cap at the widest part of the boat.
Offshore sailor Mike Keyworth once demonstrated how he could sail a Swan 44 that had the rudder and skeg removed and replaced by a spade rudder. He removed the spade rudder and then demonstrated that he could steer the now-rudderless boat by towing a Hathaway, Reiser & Raymond “sea brake” drogue. He beat to windward, tacked, reached, ran and jibed, all with no rudder, steering strictly by trimming the sails and adjusting the drogue.
My favorite story of all is the story of Williwaw, a 48-foot sloop that lost her rudder in 1978 while racing the Middle Sea Race for the Sardinia Cup. The crew felt they should drop out and secure a tow but the skipper, Lowell North, and the mate, Peter Barrett, both Olympic gold medalists, insisted that they could continue the race and finish, steering by carefully trimming the sails. This they did. To put icing on the cake, Lowell and Peter insisted on sailing into the marina, including tacking, all with no rudder on a short-keeled racing machine.
With the wind abeam or forward of abeam good sailors on most boats can steer a boat using sails only. This is easy on a ketch or yawl, hard but possible on a sloop or cutter. The 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 aft of abeam, switch to the drogue routine.
In the light of all the above, loss of steering or loss of rudder should not be regarded as a complete disaster but rather a major inconvenience.
Footnote: There is more information about steering loss in Street’s The Ocean Sailing Yacht, Volume 2. Times have changed, much new equipment has come on the market, but there is still a ton of valuable timeless information there. Bill Cooper, in his book Sell Up and Sail, writes: “… if you plan to go offshore, read The Ocean Sailing Yacht by Don Street. Don is an opinionated eccentric, but he is a seaman.”
