196 seamanship secrets
How to Sail Home if the Steering Fails
My little O’Day Javelin, at 13½ feet, skimmed across the blue-green waters of
Biscayne Bay. Picture perfect it was, with puff y cumulus cotton balls pitched here
and there across the blue sky over the Atlantic. Aft er a couple of hours of sailing, I
was getting a bit bored and decided it was time to teach myself something new.
I leaned over the transom and released the rudder pintles that were seated in
the transom gudgeons, and hauled the rudder aboard. Now I was rudderless. For
a terrifying moment I felt helpless. I’d just neutered my boat and was holding its
main underwater appendage in my bloody hands! I’d recently read about practicing
sailing without a rudder, but could it be done? Sure enough, I was able to beat,
tack, and reach by alternately tensioning or easing the jib and main.
This is a valuable skill to practice, and while my little Javelin had a tiller,
many sailboat wheels operate the rudder through a complex system of quad-
rant gears and cabling. If a wire snaps, a skipper needs an alternate steering
method. Of course, you do have that oddball emergency tiller crammed in
one of those sail lockers, don’t you? But have you tried it out? You may need
to remove the wheel from the steering pedestal to get enough room to move
the emergency tiller from side to side. Test this at the dock and underway.
Use a second line, tied with a rolling hitch, to remove an override on a winch.