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Sage words MB. Skeg hung tiller steered rudders do not have much to go wrong with them. Sturdily built you can trust your life with them.
I cant recall any loss of a yacht that I have read about that wasn't caused by either rudder failure (most being spade rudders snapped or ripped right out), or navigation errors.
There is a sobering video, of a couple sailing (in the Sth Pacific I think, from Galapagos??), that the spade rudder hit something or wasn't up to the job....the whole tube became loose & ripped a whole in the bottom of the hull. They guy was calm enough to film it by sticking his head & camera through an access panel in a rear cabin to where the rudder quadrant was flapping around in the back of the boat letting in heaps of water, just been looking for the video on YT but cant find it.
Oh I can think of only 1, a westsail snapped a timber boomkin?? in the Pacific, causing loss of rig & rescue.
I really dislike viewing these pics and vids.
Glad u cant find it
Steering failure for me is lack of control.
U shut the motor down...throw the anchor out and fix it or wait for help.
I see from the posts b4 steering failure is in many of these documented case's. ...involves holing the boat as well.
I struggle with one problem at a time.
God help us if I lose steering and have a big hole at the same time.
My emergency plan in that event would be too scream repeatedly at everyone not to panic
So begs the question. ...if you hole...and luckily enuff see it.
What is the best emergency first aid to plug it.
Having removed a buoyant spade several times in calm water, the first method I would use would be to dive under the boat with an anchor rode; slide part of the anchor rode between the hull and the top of the blade; secure the rode around the rudder; and then drop the anchor. You'd lose the anchor of course, but the whole shebang will exit the hull in my experience.
Trying to push a rudder down from the top of the tube could be a problem because you are unlikely to have anything suitable onboard. The last thing you want is for the top of the rudder stock to be near the bottom of the tube while it is being thrown sideways by water pressure and the rudder's buoyancy.
I'm not sure how drogues etc work. The old idea of using your prepared U-bolts to bolt a bunkboard to the spinnaker pole and using it as a steering oar doesn't work except in a millpond. However, when we lost a spade years ago (*&^%$# sunfish!) we ended up with the spinnaker pole running up the backstay. The tiller was then removed and lashed to the kite pole.
The emergency rudder was therefore acting close to the vertical plane, with an effectively fully-balanced rudder (ie the bunkboard). Steering then became remarkably effective, although a storm jib was used to balance the boat while we motored back to Eden.
Personally I'm just going to rely on the outboard, but I may experiment with being able to fit a bunkboard to it in case the engine won't start.
Different vessel, but how's this for an example of bad design?
www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f47/oceanis-485-steering-failure-160096.html
The control head for the autopilot was directly behind the wheel. The autopilot goes bonkers and there's no easy way to turn it off!
Found that video I was thinking of, Sorry ChopesBro 
, was in the Atlantic, .
Water in the cabin:
Ok, thanks Shaggy. The Santana 28 was designed by Shad Turner, and I don't know how modern
fin keel/spade rudder boats were back in the 70/80s but it seems he went beyond the looks/functionality
aspect of this boat and thought about the vulnerability of the rudder and what could happen if it collided
with a sunfish or some other heavy marine species. Consequently, placing the whole rudder mechanism
into a watertight compartment was incorporated in the design...Well done. I wonder how many lives have
been saved because of this.
You obviously have 'second vision' Shags. yes there have been a couple of cable holes drilled through.
Mind you, nothing that can't be sealed with a bit of silastic. So I've got to be happy.
Wow! Interesting video Blue Moon. Looks like the top end of the rudder stock was held in place by a shelf thinly glassed to a ply bulkhead? Could that be right? The whole shelf tore away allowing the rudder to swing like a pendulum trashing the bottom bearing and hull. I wonder how the emergency tiller worked?
Our boat has the rudder stock connect to a bracket and bearing fixed to the deck, the topside of which is where the emergency tiller slots into.
we don't have full watertight bulkhead, but glassed in ply that is several feet above waterline.
id be interested to see other configs.
FreeRadical, that's a nice setup!
And this is a really interesting thread :)
I'm the same as you. Only difference is the wheel interface, mine runs a Vectran line to pushrods (from middle) to a mounting on the rudder shaft, just below the upper deck bearing. The autohelm (left in pic) goes to a separate mount on the rudder shaft.
Emergency tiller is straight into the head of either rudder post.
I'll try and get some pictures of my setup next time I'm down at the boat.
How many of these boats going to Davey Jones Locker are Bennies? A lot it seems.
I recall a French coroner reporting on a Bennie, maybe 20 years ago, that was sold as a bluewater cruising boat and capsized with multiple fatalities. From memory he said that the boat wasn't safe to go outside the harbour. Angle of vanishing stability 105-110 degrees I recall.
Is it a coincidence I see Bennies sinking often, or are they really crap as ocean going boats? They are great cocktail boats.
In the video the Dutch guy is explaining how the frame is strong, but the tube is only held to the frame by glue. He also points out that the ply is not strong when the load is a delaminating load. The obvious design improvement would be to bolt saddles over the tube, and have the bolts go through the frame, so the bolts and washers place the ply in compression.
Also looks like the bond between the frame and the hull? was also inadequate.
All in all, a pretty shocking design for such a critical element.
Was reading an article in Yachting World about a Swedish design, where the rudder was designed to fail below the lower mounting, so that it does not rip the back of the boat off. Left them with a rudder stub, and no damage to the boat. They rigged a jury steering system and sailed the boat more than a thousand miles to port.
I would leave them loose so you can get at the damage. A floorboard isn't going to stop the flood for long.
I had a 1/2" sea cock fail on me on my Duncanson. We were back on the mooring and had a trickle coming in that wouldn't stop. I checked a cock and it came off in my hand. The water jetted out of the hole to a height of about 2ft. I put a bung in straight away but the flood was coming in fast enough that it would have filled the little 26 ft boat in maybe 10 minutes.
I want to find the leak ASAP and reduce the inflow to a manageable level.
yachthub.com/list/yachts-for-sale/used/sail-monohulls/beneteau-oceanis-50-for-tender-on-behalf-of-qbe-insurance-australia/169827
Is this the yacht ? It sold quickly for that price.
Hit a turtle at speed in a cat once, it fractured the skeg supporting??? the rudder, bent a 1 1/2 inch solid rudder shaft and the tip of the rudder slashed a hole through the floor of the rudder flat. Fortunately there was a partial bulkhead that isolated the rudder but even so quite a lot of water found its way forward. And with the steering jammed it was fortunate that it was a cat with two motors so there was a way to steer. A boat weighing 5 or 6 tons has a lot of momentum at even modest speeds, so if you hit something with a rudder or centreboard you will be very fortunate to escape serious damage, usually in a place that is hard to get.
We were in another cat that hit an old beacon pipe that was underwater, it ran along the hull until it popped a skin fitting out. The influx of water was dramatic. A cushion with a big foot against it stopped most of it, enough to let the portable bilge pump cope, then a bit of bunk board slathered with Selleys Blockade was held in place by a tom cut from a length of timber that is usually used when moored against a pile. The jury rig held reliably until I lifted out 2 weeks later. But with a serious hole in the boat you don't get much time to act.
A piece of three ply or even laminex with a large bead around the edge of T Rex, which bonds under water and a few small monel ring nails could save the boat and a few lives in a situation like this...... time and all other factors going your way of course! As well as carrying some tapered wooden bungs sized to fit hull through fittings.
soudal.com.au/trexsmx/
No breaking waves on the first - visible - leg and I wouldn't take it on if there was a break. The bar is now about half a mile further north and much better than the old entrance. The break was on the second leg which you can't see from seaward. The waves were not high, just rough, which begs the question, should you not cross in rough conditions at the top of the tide. I am sure that if I had crossed a couple of hours earlier the sand bank to the east would have blocked the swell more effectively and given me a smoother ride. I came out of the bay a fortnight earlier so had a very good idea where the new tracks are.
I've no problem with a drogue on the first leg with the seas astern, just can't get my head around the use it on the second leg. Saw a boat - Exocet - get caught crossing out one time, he only had a 9 horse Yanmar, couldn't cope and he surfed in quite a way backwards. Glad his crew had a sense of humour. The same sea caught Pineapple Pol and buried her almost to the mast, inflated her life raft which was then tethered along side. Much drama.
