How we sailed 1500 miles without a rudder in the middle of the ocean
THE PERFECT GIFT!
Give or treat yourself to a subscription to the print + digital Journal of Sailing and for only 69 euros a year you get the magazine at home plus read it on your PC, smartphone and tablet. With a sea of advantages.
What would you do if, in the middle of an Atlantic crossing, you happened to lose your rudder? That’s what happened to Patrick Marshall’s Sweden Yacht 390 Egret, which, 1,500 miles out of the Caribbean (departing from Cape Verde) found itself facing half the Atlantic Ocean without its rudder blade attached to the hull anymore. You know, difficulties sharpen the wit, and check out what system Mr. Marshall came up with (on board only with his wife) and then shared on the pages of Yachting World. The question arises: how do you steer a 39-foot hull weighing nine tons in challenging weather conditions (force 7 wind) without a rudder and having to sail even at night?
EGRET OWNER’S TALE
We were sailing beautifully by slack, under an incredible full moon, surfing the waves at seven knots. Suddenly we heard a loud clanking sound coming from under the hull, the sails started flapping as the boat had gone off course. The first thing I thought was that it was a problem with the autopilot, but it remained impossible to steer the boat even from the wheel, so we decided to furl the sails (we were sailing fortunately only with a genoa and staysail to butterfly) to figure out what was going on.
The second assumption we made was that the problem was the connection between the rudder wheel and the blade, but when we realized that it was not possible to steer even after installing the emergency tiller, we realized that the damage was below the waterline: we had lost the rudder blade.
WE LOST THE RUDDER BLADE!
The first fear was that the blade leak had also damaged the hull, so we immediately operated the bilge pump and inspected the area where the rudder shaft enters the hull: everything was fortunately okay. Meanwhile, the sun had begun to rise, and we took a moment to pause with the intention of radioing nearby boats what had just happened to us. Immediately we received instructions appropriate to the situation: what we had to do was to make a drag system to be thrown aft that would allow us to steer the boat.
We immediately set to work to improvise one. We secured two lines to the stern bollards joined in a triangle to a system consisting of: a 12-meter line, 4 meters of chain to which our Bruce anchor was attached with a fender secured, another 4 meters of line with fender, and finally another 4 meters of chain with two fenders, for a total of 32 meters of drag. Then we connected the spinnaker sheets to the first section of chain, passed by two blocks one on the starboard tack and one on the port tack, and returned to two winches in the cockpit.
Pictured is a fiberglass example of the Sweden Yacht 390. Upon examination of the hull at the site, it appears that the reason for the loss of the shovel may have been collision with a semi-submerged container. The boat’s owner was able to have a new rudder rebuilt by Sweden Yacht, which still had the drawings, even though the hull was no longer in production. Lung. 11.88 m; wd. 3.87: pesc. 1,75 m.
By adjusting the spinnaker sheets, letting or hauling the right or left one, we were able to control the boat’s course and tack or gybe as needed. With that done, it remained to resolve the trim of the sails to sail on course. The best compromise we were able to find was to sail to the beam with only a small headsail with the possibility of leaning up to slack by rigging downwind a staysail and tangoning upwind a small area of genoa with the possibility of unfurling more if conditions permsed it. The wind was blowing between 24 and 30 knots with four-meter waves; therefore, we maintained very high concentration at all times, especially during the night hours.
HELP ARRIVES
In the meantime, several boats above offered their help by radio. We required some diesel as the wind was beginning to drop as we continued our sail to the Caribbean with a double headsail, alternating the staysail with the staysail and the tangoned genoa, so that the sail plan was balanced and we had to adjust our course only slightly through the drag system we had improvised. We took advantage of the drop in wind to try different sail combinations and thus be ready to maneuver if conditions worsened. As soon as the wind dropped sufficiently, we were able to get a tender pulled over by the crew of a New Zealand yacht to retrieve two cans of diesel fuel that enabled us, after twenty-six days of sailing and 1,500 rudderless miles, to arrive in St. Lucia.
DISCOVER ALL TECH, ACCESSORIES & PRACTICE NEWS
Share:
Are you already a subscriber?
Ultimi annunci
Our social
Sign up for our Newsletter
We give you a gift
Sailing, its stories, all boats, accessories. Sign up now for our free newsletter and receive the best news selected by the Sailing Newspaper editorial staff each week. Plus we give you one month of GdV digitally on PC, Tablet, Smartphone. Enter your email below, agree to the Privacy Policy and click the “sign me up” button. You will receive a code to activate your month of GdV for free!
You may also be interested in.
Farewell to Mauro Morandi, the hermit “guardian” of the island of Budelli
Mauro Morandi, a former physical education teacher originally from Modena who lived on the island of Budelli, Sardinia, for 32 years in complete solitude like a modern-day Robinson Crusoe, has passed away at the age of 85. Mauro Morandi, the
Mystery of Pogo 50 “ghost” stranded in Cefalù solved
Last Dec. 7, a 15-meter sailboat in good condition but without a crew ran aground on the beach in Cefalù, Sicily. After an on-board inspection and a series of investigations, the Coast Guard identified the boat involved in an accident
How to go on a sailing cruise on Lake Maggiore
It often happens to tell of adventures, regattas and crossings bordering on the verisimilar, “salty” experiences, so to speak. Fewer, however, happen to talk about lakes. Yet sailing is certainly no stranger to the lake tradition, and we are not
Replica Viking ship sinks: archaeologist on board dies
Twenty-nine-year-old archaeologist Karla Dana died during the “Legendary Viking Voyage” expedition from the Faroe Islands to Norway aboard a replica Viking ship that capsized due to bad weather. It was supposed to be a voyage back in time when the