Broken Rudder Quadrant

Steering is one of the three important components of a sailing yacht while cruising, the other two being drinkable water and sails with sound rigging.

Our rudder quadrant shattered when we were pulled off a shoal and the rudder turned towards the direction of turn, causing the weight of the boat to turn it further than it normally does. The rudder quadrant rammed into the bump stop inside the hull and shattered as the weight of the boat forced the rudder and quadrant to turn further. 

Making myself familiar with our steering system before we left and before anything broke helped facilitate the repair process. I know how it is supposed to be, so when it shattered, I knew how to remove it and how to reinstall it once it is repaired. 

Our rudder quadrant is made out of cast aluminum, so the repair of choice would be to have it welded back together. This would give us steerage again and allow us to continue our cruising.  

Loosing our rudder quadrant was quite a mental blow to us, as we had now lost one of the vital points of a sound cruising yacht. We do have a spare tiller and a spare oar that can function as a rudder, but luckily the tow boat was present so we were able to be towed by the hip to a marina while we await repairs. 

Little Nipper

An old phrase used to discribe a small child, but what exactly is a "nipper" and why do we call children this?

Well, back before child labor laws, small children were employed on large ships because they were small enough to fit down the hawse pipe that leads the chain out to the anchor. There was no way the crew on the ship could lift the anchor by hand, so they needed to use a capstand to provide the force needed. The issue is that the chain the ship used didn't fit on the capstand, so they used a rope for this purpose called a "nipper". Yes, a rope needed to be tied to the chain so that it could be hauled in with the capstand and that would take the weight off the chain so that the crew could haul the chain rode up onto the deck.  This was called "nipping" and you needed someone small enough to crawl down the hawse pipe to tie the nipping line to the chain.

Naturally, a small child would fit through the pipe the best, and since they were tying the nipping line, they were naturally called "little nippers".  

Next time you see a little one running around and call them a "little nipper", just imagine them climbing down the chain as close to the sea as possible to tie a nipping line to it! 

Measuring your Mast Height

Knowing your mast height is very important when you go cruising because you will encounter bridges and it would behoove you to know if you will fit under said bridge! If you hit a bridge, your chainplates and spar will suffer considerable damage that could easily cause your yacht to become a "total loss" according to your insurance company.

Measuring your mast height is very simple, or complicated if you want to take it to the next level. All you need to do is attach a messenger line to the main halyard and run it up the mast until the halyard reaches the shiv. Simply cleat off the halyard so you can pull tightly on the messenger line and carry out the measuring process. 

Now, all you need to do is to take the other end of your messenger line and lead it down to your waterline. With the messenger line pulled tight, you will create a straight line from your mast head to the waterline next to your boat. Without you realizeing it, you have created a right triangle that will aid you in your further calculations. 

If you want to keep your measurement simple, you can simply mark the end of the messenger line (where it got wet as it met the waterline) and measure the distance to the masthead shiv. This is a slightly longer than true mast height measurement.  

If you want to take it a step further, you can now use the triangle you have created to calculate the rest.  The messenger line is the hypotenuse of the right triangle. Half the beam is the base of the triangle, and the mast height is the unknown.

Using Pythagoras's Theorem, you can solve for the unknown mast height. Pythagoras's Theorem is: 

a^2 + b^2 = c^2

a is the height, b is the base, and c is the hypotenuse. 

the equation could then be reworked to fit our needs as: 

a^2 = c^2 - b^2

and then further broken down into

a = (c^2)^(1/2) - (b^2)^(1/2) 

This could be again simplified using the actual boat measurements into the following equation:

Mast Height = (Messenger Line Length ^2)^(1/2) - ((Beam/2)^2)^(1/2) 

If you feel like indulging your mind a bit further, you can now factor in the height of the mast above the shiv by using a wooden dowel. The dowel is attached to the halyard and tied in a a guesstimated height above the line. When the halyard is pulled up all the way, the dowel will point up and above the mast head and it can then be evaluated from a distance. The top of the dowel should be the same height as the top of the antenna on the masthead. If it looks a bit taller, simply scoot the dowel down on the knot. If the dowel looks a bit shorter, simply scoot the dowel up on the knot. 

When you finally set the dowel so that it is the same height as the tallest item on your mast, simply add this distance to your messenger line (or true mast height if you calculated it) and this will be your actual mast height clearance. 

Climbing Your Mast on a Wire Halyard

First off, I want to emphasize that you should never climb a mast with a wire halyard, or a wire-rope spliced halyard. 

Now, if you have a wire halyard and you need to go up, then you need to make due with what you have! 

If your halyard isn't long enough to reach your harness, now you need to attach a length of line between the end of the halyard and your harness, that way when you are finished, you will end up on the deck and not suspended a few feet above the deck when you are tired and want to get out of the harness! 

Wire is dangerous to tie knots in because it is both slippery and brittle. If you bend it too tightly, it will crimp and kink, damaging and weakening the wire strands and leading to its eventual breakage. Keeping bends open will also make it easier for the knot to slip and come untied. Thus you encounter the dilemma of tying a knot in wire and rope! 

While helping out a cruiser climb her mast, I tied this knot between the two materials to allow her to hang safely from her wire halyard. The knot is a combination of a sheet bend and a figure eight in a bight. An important thing to do with this knot is to certainly secure the bitter ends. I attached the shackle of the wire onto itself and the bight of the rope had the tail passing through it. These added features are merely present so that if the knot were to slip, it would slid onto the attached bitter end and stop moving from there. 

Naturally, since this knot is new to me and created on the fly out of necessity, our cruiser friend who was in the harness and at deck level was encourage to drop from her feet to a seated position to test the knot and verify that there is no slippage or other concerns that might occur while she was aloft. 

While creating a new knot, be sure to test it at its desired function, and incorporate some method that will facilitate ease of untying after the knots intended purpose has been completed. 

Orientation of Through Bolts

When through bolting hardware, you might not pay much attention to which direction the bolt is facing. This may seem like a very mundane point to ponder, but this small detail can have a significant effect on the outcome of your project.

You may feel inclined to simply insert the bolt from which ever side you are standing on, but the truth is there is a right and wrong way to position a bolt.

To begin, lets look at a standard bolt. You have the head, smooth shank, and threaded portion. The head allows you to grasp the bolt with tools such as wrenches and sockets. The smooth shank is often overlooked, as it merely connects the head to the threads. The threaded portion is where the opposing nut attaches to give a bolt its fastening abilities.

The truth is, the smooth shank that is often ignored is actually the designed load bearing area of the bolt. This region of the bolt bears the most bulk and thus strength of the bolt. The threaded portion is actually significantly thinner as the threads are cut in, making the thickness of material reduced by the depth of the threads.

If you through bolt a high sheer stress object with the nut facing the most load, you risk sheering off the nut and causing a catastrophic failure to whatever you were trying to retain. The head should face the high strain working areas, as the head is right next to the smooth shank and thus is the strongest side of the bolt.

In the example below, a bracket was through bolted to the mast that will act as the attachment for all the turning blocks. Under full load, this bracket will be subjected to the full fury of the reef lines and main halyard. Since the halyard is located on one side of the bracket, that side will also be bequeathed with the heads of the bolts. The other side which will be under slightly less load will contain all of the acorn nuts used to hold the bolts in place.

Next time you go to through bolt a piece of equipment, be mindful of which end will be subjected to the most strain and place the heads of the bolts accordingly.