I would think a couple of light stringers, like in surfboards, would
substantially strengthen the rudder. While not as strong as a cedar
cored rudder, the minor weight gain vs the superior strength gain
would be on the plus side all the way around.
K
On Aug 20, 2007, at 8:42 AM, telus wrote:
Having had the same experience as Mark some time ago, I feel his pain.
Perhaps one of the creative engineers out there can come up with a
solution. A few auto makers have a “shear pin” in their steering
columns. If you brake and hit the steering wheel hard, the steering
column collapses. Perhaps we could have something which is designed
to fail under excessive loads, but can be re-set on the water, such
as a plastic gudgeon pin or similar………..
Roger
From: Mark White [mailto:mwhite@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, August 20, 2007 7:09 AM
To: swiftsolo@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: rudder blues
To all,
I made the mistake of misjudging the wind speed yesterday. I left
the shore where it was fairly well protected from the wind,
thinking the wind was blowing around 20. I knew it was in deep
dodo as soon as I hit the wind about 200 yds off shore. The wind
was not steady, it was like rolling, or twisting constantly. My
heading was constantly shifting 20 degrees or so, just trying to
maintain a straight course. The battens kept popping from left to
right, while I bounced in and out of the water. The only thing I
could think to do was to bear off, run down wind, gibe, and come
back to my starting point on the beach. I tried 3 or 4 times to
bear off but the boat refused to do so. Every time I tried, the
bow went down to the gunwale and would start to heel over. The
last attempt I tried as fast as possible. The boat heeled, and I
heard a breaking sound, like wood tearing. I thought I had broken
the transom, or the transom bar. After capsizing I couldn't find
any damage. Luckily someone was there and helped me get the mail
down while capsized. Thinking all was well, I started heading for
shore under the jib, and noticed the boat steered very sloppy, that
was when I noticed what broke. The rudder was kicked off to
starboard. It lasted about 3/4 of a minute, and broke off behind
the boat. Needless to say the boat without a rudder just spins in
circles. The ride out lasted about 1 minute, the tow back in
lasted about 20 minutes. I had left my wind gauge at home and the
one at the marina was broken, but the folks that run the place
thought the wind was blowing 35 gusting to 40, I didn't think it
was that high, but I really don't know.
So it appears that the rudder was the weak link. I still can't
imagine the rudder could have had enough pressure on it to break.
The question is do you make the rudder stronger, then possibly
breaking the next weaker link, or let the rudder be the weak link?
Obviously the best solution is to stay on the shore on days like
this, but you can still be caught in big wind while out on the
water. I think now it would be a good idea to have a hand held VHF
in my PDF. If I had been farther out, or out of sight of the
marina and this had happened, and no one right there to assist, it
would have been ugly. I believe I would have been ok, but the boat
would have eventually wound up on the rocks. I now have a new
found respect for the wind, and the need for a new rudder blank.
I'm not sure what else I could have done, but it would be good to
know what to do if found in this situation in the future. In hind
sight, I think I could have tacked, and maybe tried to stall the
boat and drift back to shore, but if it wouldn't stall, and drift,
I would have headed towards the floating piers. I just knew I
didn't want to get any further away from shore. I don't think I
could have gotten the main down and kept the boat up-right. In a
one man boat the options seem limited.
I think this is something that should be discussed, here or on the
website, since anyone could end up in a situation similar to this.
Mark
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