Arwen's meanderings

Hi everyone and welcome to my dinghy cruising blog about my John Welsford designed 'navigator' named Arwen. Built over three years, Arwen was launched in August 2007. She is a standing lug yawl 14' 6" in length. This blog records our dinghy cruising voyages together around the coastal waters of SW England.
Arwen has an associated YouTube channel so visit www.YouTube.com/c/plymouthwelshboy to find our most recent cruises and click subscribe.
On this blog you will find posts about dinghy cruising locations, accounts of our voyages, maintenance tips and 'How to's' ranging from rigging standing lug sails and building galley boxes to using 'anchor buddies' and creating 'pilotage notes'. I hope you find something that inspires you to get out on the water in your boat. Drop us a comment and happy sailing.
Steve and Arwen

Tuesday 6 July 2010

stalling tacks, rudders hitting props and shear pins breaking!

I’ve been facing one or two issues on Arwen recently. The first is that the boat seems to stall when doing a tack – we lose a huge amount of speed and frequently she stalls so that I have to back the jib to get her through the rest of the tack. Quite annoying really. It is clearly my poor sailing skills!


The second issue is that I can’t have the outboard on and steer by rudder/tiller without the rudder hitting the prop and causing a shear pin to...well shear! Normally at the most inconvenient times.......like trying to get out of the way of a major dinghy race about to start in the Sound (what's the fast time you've ever replaced a shear pin in.......bet I can beat it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I have a small 3.5 hp 2 stroke Tohatsu outboard on a home built bracket – you’ll see in some of the photographs and video clips of Arwen scattered through this site. The bracket is mounted as far on the starboard side of the transom as I can get it. What I would like to do is to be able to lock the outboard off so that it is straight and doesn't turn (easy to do it has a screw that does just that) and then with outboard on - steer in open water using just the rudder.........but....it never seems to work out that way!

My fantastically reliable and faithful outboard which pushes Arwen along quite easily

You can see where the outboard is on the left of this picture behind me...its in the raised position but when down, a turn of the tiller to starboard and the prop and rudder collide.......normally with a resultant shearing of the shear pin!


Anyway, to cut a long story short – a post on the yahoo John Welsford forum elicited a flurry of responses and suggestions. I love that forum – the guys are so positive, experienced and giving of constructive advice. When you are a newbie sailor such a place is a godsend frankly.

I think they have come up with some viable solutions although I would appreciate any further advice from readers of this blog as well via the comments box. All help is gratefully received.

It appears (and I didn’t know this) that you never turn the tiller through more than 45 degrees or the boat will stall. Ah! I throw the tiller well over to one side – so I need to learn to not turn it through more than 30 degrees......so how might I do this? Some suggestions have included some form of bungee cords attached to the tiller and to each side of the boat which are tensioned...a tiller tamer sort of arrangement which if set correctly will also hold the tiller amidships – very useful at times I should think.

Hajo suggested looking at larger boats in the marina at QAB – apparently they have ropes or struts attaching the rudder to the transom which prevent the rudder from turning more than 30 degrees in either direction – this seems quite a nice idea as well. If I can arrange these ropes carefully – perhaps they would also prevent me turning it so much that the rudder then hits the propeller......all I need to do is make sure that the rope doesn’t sag sufficiently to TANGLE in said propeller.......ugh – what a thought!

Robin has suggested making a homemade prop guard as you can’t seem to buy a purpose made one for such a small outboard engine. He suggests bolting a strip of pipe prop guard either side of the skeg and cavitation plate. I quite like this idea but am worried that I might damage the outboard....this isn’t for the faint hearted ......and clearly I am.

Anyway, yet again the John Welsford forum has given me food for thought, the posse have come up trumps and I have lots of experimenting and thinking to do over the next week or so.......I’ll let you know the results so. If any readers have any thoughts on the issue of rudders hitting props and how to solve it – I’d love to hear from you too.

In the meantime, I need to prepare for next week – out on the water every day with 18 teenagers all doing their RYA levels 1 and 2.......great kids, lovely weather, fantastic scenery....sometimes my job DOES have rewards....next week will, all being well, be one of them

Cheers

Steve

4 comments:

Rob said...

Good luck with these issues Steve. I found it hard on my Waller too, especially when alone, trying to steer in shallow water with the board up- and having to decide whether to steer with motor or tiller, while also getting control of current, moving objects, wind, jetty, etc. There is a lot to learn when getting started! Mine steers fine with either method when the board is down a bit. Limiting the rudder travel might be accomplished with small stop blocks maybe?
As to tacking, I include this link I found which might be helpful for us in a yawl, even though his boat has no jib (so tactics will differ)
http://thumb6.webshots.net/t/50/650/6/64/60/2515664600088484686hMziuW_th.jpg

steve said...

Rob - thanks for the comments and support. It is frustrating. I couldn't get the web link to open but thanks for taking the time to investigate further for me - much appreciated

steve

Anonymous said...

Steve:

I think the link that Rob posted was composed by James McMullen on the Woodenboat Forum. It is posted in a thread at Lug Yawl Sailing. It is specifically referring to an Oughtred lug yawl, but may be helpful.

You have a beautiful Navigator. I hope mine looks as good once I am done.

God bless!

steve said...

Ah.....thank you. I had seen these before but foolishly forgot to bookmark them and so could never remember where I'd seen them......this is really helpful.....deeply appreciated to both of you.....thanks guys

Steve