A sad story and some boat projects it inspires...

Moldy chum gets political and gives an award, a history lesson from Crooks and Liars, and Lectronic Latitude tells a sad story...

As someone who has lost a boat myself, I found the story in Lectronic Latitude about the loss of Ka-Em-Te deeply depressing and something of a wake up call where "So It Goes" is concerned.

In most modern boats, rudders are something of a weak point with the current fashion being trusting to good luck rather than designing rudders to actually survive serious contact with something other than water... You know, the whistling as you walk through a graveyard approach.

While "So It Goes" (a CAL 34 for those new to Boat Bits) has an unsupported rudder without a skeg...

... it could be a lot worse than many of the same ilk. Luckily the larger-than-many fin keel does a pretty good job of protecting the rudder from things that go bump in the night. The fairly solid tube for the rudder stock is dead simple (no bearings or stuffing boxes to leak or be compromised in a collision) and if we were to hit something hard the chances are that the rudder would fail before the hull/rudder tube.

I've spent a lot of time crawling around in boats looking at steering systems and the Cal is as bombproof as you can get without resorting to a rudder protected by a full keel or some serious skeg in the mix...

Now, I have actually considered adding a small skeg from time to time and come the next haul out may actually do it. If for no other reason, it would make the chance of snagging fish traps a kiss less likely with the bonus of, just maybe, keeping things that go bump in the night a bit less catastrophic...

Another improvement to the system would be the addition to the laminate structure around the rudder tube, the actual rudder tube and the area area below the cockpit and the hull area around it... Since I have a couple of meters of carbon biaxial cloth taking up space in a locker just waiting for a project, it is something of a no-brainer and just got moved way up the list on things that need to be done.

The other project to improve the situation is already in progress and this involves switching from our servo-pendulum (Atoms) self steering back to an auxiliary rudder system (we used to have an RVG) which would be capable of working as an emergency rudder if the rudder were to be lost entirely.

Since the common sense of both belt and braces is not lost on me, we also have the various components to fabricate a rudder just in case whatever takes off our rudder also takes off the self-steering gear.

Just something to think about if you intend to sail further offshore than you care to swim back from...

Listening to White Rabbits

So it goes...