Steering cable repair

[Warren Holybee]

A couple pictures of my steering cable repair. A cable broke about 500 miles from St. Thomas. I made a temporary repair while offshore with a piece of dyneema, and after arriving and inspecting it, decided that dyneema is probably a better material to use anyway. So, I bought some more here, along with a couple thimbles, and made it permanent. I expect it to last as long or longer than the wire, and is cheap and easy to replace, even during a passage, as I found out. The cable had a lot of miles on it, but was inspected and had no signs of wear or meathooks or anything. It was new in 2017.

The previous modification with the bearing sleeves is working very well. I expect them to last forever.

The big dissapointment was the emergency rudder from scanmar proved nearly useless. In 15kts on SF bay and flat water it was sufficient. With a swell it did nothing, but I was mostly able to control the boat with sails alone.

 

[terry_thatcher]

Thanks for the report. I have the Scanmar E rudder. Sad to hear it failed. Please report to Scanmar your experience.
I have resisted moving to a Hydrovane because I had heard some concerns about its steering effectiveness. But it IS a
stand-alone auxiliary rudder. By the way, how hard was it to install the Scanmar rudder at sea? Seems hard with 2 people;
almost impossible single-handed. I would like any tips you can share.

 

[Warren Holybee]

Thanks for the report. I have the Scanmar E rudder. Sad to hear it failed. Please report to Scanmar your experience.
I have resisted moving to a Hydrovane because I had heard some concerns about its steering effectiveness. But it IS a
stand-alone auxiliary rudder. By the way, how hard was it to install the Scanmar rudder at sea? Seems hard with 2 people;
almost impossible single-handed. I would like any tips you can share.

I had practiced the install, and wasn't too hard with help, I could do it single handed. I climb down onto frame and sit down straddling the lower support/mount. It is not comfortable at all, painful even. Wrapping a towel around the tube helps. I used carabineers with a safety line to hold all the split rings, etc. Tied the rudder to a safety line and let it float in the water while attaching it.

I think the Monitor steers much better than the Hydro-vane, at least that is what I surmise from people that have used both. The hydrovane requires the boat to be well balanced, and the wheel locked not at the center, but to compensate for any weather helm. My understanding is that the hydrovane is not powerful enough to steer the boat with the rudder locked on center, which might have been my issue. I lashed the quadrant to hold the rudder as close to center as I could, but it wasn't exactly centered and had some movement. I would sure love to sail a Morgan with a Hydrovane to see how it performs though and not rely on second person opinions.

I would also like to know how many square inches the hydrovane rudder is, and how many degrees it is capable of turning. That would give some idea how the hydrovane compares to the emergency rudder, which for those reading this that don't know, simply turns the Monitor into an aux rudder type vane instead of a pendulum type. In theory it should perform about the same as a hydrovane.

 

[terry_thatcher]

so you are sitting sideways on the lower support frame? Oh, and please do get in touch with Scanmar. They are great to deal with, as you may already know. They may have some advice. Susie has been infinitely helpful. And if she can't help, she will pass on your comments. I want to be able to rely on the e-rudder. Athough I now also carry a Fiorentino Shark drogue for emergency steering, but that you have to run from the main sheet winches so it won't work as a wind steering device. I have a friend who sailed to Mexico and on to Hawaii in a Catalina 42 and he loves his hydrovane and some of the round the world single handers evidently use it. I want to addc that I am impressed with both you ingenuity and agility.

 

[Warren Holybee]

I probably will write her, just haven't gotten around to it yet. I did just check the hydrovane site. That ruder is 3.5 sqft. Without measuring the Monitor rudder, I think that is at least twice as large. I think scanmar probably needs to offer rudders in different sizes. Perhaps the size is limited by the method of supporting it with spectra lines?

 

[royaltern]

Warren, did you need the emergency rudder so you could countiue to use your wind vane stering, insted of the emergency tiller? I know that it was your stering cables that broke.

 

[Warren Holybee]

Warren, did you need the emergency rudder so you could countiue to use your wind vane stering, insted of the emergency tiller? I know that it was your stering cables that broke.

Yes. The emergency tiller is *very* awkward to use, and there was still about 7 days left. So it wasn't much use.