A last minute project – SOS rudder install

We’ve been busy these past few days here at the Richmond Yacht Club, working on list items and meeting other sailors.  Last week, Justin arrived ahead of me and started working on the mounting brackets for the Scanmar SOS rudder that we had bought used from a sailing friend he knew online.  Although we were originally thinking that we would rely on a drogue for emergency steering, we weren’t doing leaps of joy after we actually tested the set-up back on Galveston Bay.  We were able to get the boat to turn a bit, but had really hoped for more responsiveness than we experienced – instead we watched our course change over the course of minutes and tens of minutes – a lifetime if you’re needing to trim sails or make a waypoint.  During our inspection, we were able to get the boat to steer a bit better, but it required a lot of engine power to be able to overpower the rudder (the rudders on J/120’s are substantial).

So, it seemed prudent to do what was needed to be able to use the SOS rudder, if needed, since there have been instances in nearly every Pacific Cup where at least one boat had some sort of rudder issue.  In addition, there is the possibility that we could encounter some debris from the 2011 Japanese tsunami that continues to circle in the North Pacific gyre (in fact, we’ve volunteered to keep data logs for an ongoing study, just in case we see something).  To be able to use the SOS rudder meant adding hardware to the transom and retrofitting the mounting brackets so that the arm lengths were appropriate for our boat (the used rudder system had been used on a J/35-C).

Justin did this project all on his own – and he’s done a great job.  Should we need to deploy this at sea, it will be a pain, but we should be able to do it.  Hopefully, all the time he has worked and the money we spent on the rudder are just piece of mind insurance that we’ll never have to use.  The real expense, though, is that the rudder costs us over 50 lbs in weight!

The mounting brackets for the SOS rudder require substantial backing plates – we used G-10.

The mounted SOS rudder took a bit of finesse to line up each of the arms, but it was easier with an alignment tool.

Compared to our rudder, the SOS rudder is probably a third the size.

We’ve realized that in the event of a rudder failure, either the drogue or the SOS rudder is likely to “work” if we had a complete rudder loss.  However, it will likely be challenging if we end up with a jammed rudder or other failure where the rudder stays in place and acts like a big brake.

So, we’ll hope for no issues.  Probability is on our side.

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