On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:45:49 -0500, jeff wrote:

Wayne.B wrote:
On Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:04:59 -0500, jeff wrote:

Catamarans of course have an issue since the keels are usually only
slightly deeper than the rudders, so strikes are common.

That can happen of course, but most monohull steering failures are
caused by structural issues internal to the rudder or in the cables,
blocks or quadrant.

Yes - but cable issues are a different class of failure. Every boat
should have some form of emergency tiller to make do when there is some
type of linkage issue. No one should be stranded mid-ocean because of a
quadrant or cable problem.

So this leaves several failure modes - rudder falling off, post
separating inside rudder, and post bending and jamming rudder. I wonder
what the frequency of failure is for the various types of rudders.


I read a fairly comprehensive analysis of rudder strength in some
boating magazine - probably Practical Boat Owner - but it was several
years ago. The article was an excerpt from the author's testimony as
an expert witness in a court case involving the loss of a yacht rudder
during a storm.

So apparently it is not an unknown phenomena, and from the tone of the
article, which did not mention the make of yacht but I think was a
Benataou (sp?) and seemed to say that many yacht rudders were not
constructed with the idea of being caught in a major storm in mind.

Cheers,

Bruce
(bruceinbangkokatgmaildotcom)