keabird
Paddler
I was able to continue my sea trials today as we had some good wind here. That was the good part. The bad happened on the water. I got out on the water and got both sails up. I noticed immediately that it was very hard to keep my rudder pointed the way I wanted using the "gas pedal" style steering. I finally got good control and was on a good close reach for about a minute when I hear a pop and lost steering control.
The pop was one of the control cables coming loose from the foot pedals. I immediately lowered the sails and paddled back into shore. I have come to the conclusion that using the cable rudder setup just isn't going to work so I will build a rudder with a tiller set up that I will steer by hand.
My question to you involves this new rudder. Will it be more effective if I make it wider? By wider I don't mean the thickness. The rudder I am using now has about 10 inches (length) of the blade in the water. It is about 6 inches wide. Would something much bigger give me better control? Any of you knowledgeable sailors have any suggestions?
The pop was one of the control cables coming loose from the foot pedals. I immediately lowered the sails and paddled back into shore. I have come to the conclusion that using the cable rudder setup just isn't going to work so I will build a rudder with a tiller set up that I will steer by hand.
My question to you involves this new rudder. Will it be more effective if I make it wider? By wider I don't mean the thickness. The rudder I am using now has about 10 inches (length) of the blade in the water. It is about 6 inches wide. Would something much bigger give me better control? Any of you knowledgeable sailors have any suggestions?