Going Astern With Tom Cunliffe
Book Extract
Arriving stern-first into an unfamiliar marina or berth can be a daunting prospect, particularly as different types of yachts – bilge-keeled, long-keeled and fin-keeled – demand different tactics, and some are trickier to handle than others.
Back in the 1920s, W O Bentley told his colleague Ettore Bugatti that his racing cars had lousy brakes. Quick as a flash, Bugatti responded, ‘I make my cars to go, not to stop!’
I’ll bet if you’d complained to any of the great designers of the past about their boats being unpredictable backing out of a berth, they’d have retorted with, ‘Who on Earth wants to go astern? My boats are meant to sail sharp end first…’
Times have changed. These days, many of us are stuck with marina pontoons that demand some degree of manoeuvrability astern, and Mediterranean sailors can find themselves backing up to the quay on a daily basis. Arriving stern-first can be a daunting experience, and numerous long-keel yacht owners have said to me in the past, ‘My boat has a mind of her own.’ So, determined to do something about it I climbed into my boat-handling boots and jumped aboard three very different yachts.
The Theory
The tiller is an extension of the rudder, imagine the two in a rigid straight line
Steering when going astern
The secret of remembering which way to turn the helm going astern is to imagine you can see the rudder, then point it the way you want the stern to swing. So long as you’re looking astern, this makes the process logical. Doing the job with a wheel is exactly the same as if you were driving a car. Forget about port and starboard. If you want the stern to go to your left as you are looking, wind the wheel left and you can’t do more.
Ideally, the trick is to site yourself forward of the helm so it’s between you and where you are going. If you can’t manage this, at least sit or stand abeam of the wheel. That way, you can’t get your trousers in a twist. With a tiller, just remember that it is an extension of the rudder. Imagine the two in a rigid straight line, pivoting in the middle. To move the rudder so that it points left and takes the stern that way, you’ll have to shove the tiller to the right.
Whatever you’re steering with, there is often a serious time-lag between pointing the rudder and getting the response you’re after.
Indeed, the boat may continue to go the wrong way for quite some time. Don’t panic. Hang in and wait. If it’s going to happen, it will in the end.
If it isn’t, you’re done for and you’ll have to think again. Wiggling the rudder will not help.
Propwalk
Most propellers come with an inbuilt tendency to take the stern one way or the other, especially with the engine running astern. The majority are said to be ‘right-handed’, which means that, looking from behind, they are revolving clockwise when going ahead. The important thing is what happens when the engine is thrown into astern. A right-handed prop will cartwheel the stern to port, a left-handed vice versa. Before you can expect to steer a yacht astern, it’s vital to know which you have.
It’s vital to know which way your prop kicks
Underwater profiles
One reason why traditional longkeeled yachts steer so sweetly on passage is because they have a lot of draught aft and less near the bow. Going astern, the situation is reversed and it does them no favours. The position is often similar, though less destructive, in yachts with a long fin keel and a rudder hung from a skeg. Boats that are essentially flat-floored with a boltedon keel and an unsupported spade rudder don’t suffer from these drawbacks. They often steer almost as well going astern as ahead. The situation is even easier if they have a vertical trailing edge to the rudder, which many do. Their only failing is that, with little or no appreciable draught at the bow, they can be subject to blowing around uncontrollably at speeds too low for the rudder to bite. The only sure way to combat this is with a bow thruster.
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Expert Sailing Skills is written by Tom Cunliffe. Tom Cunliffe is Britain’s leading sailing writer. A worldwide authority on cruising instruction and an expert on traditional sailing craft, he learned his sextant skills during numerous ocean passages, many in simple boats without engines or electronics, voyaging from Brazil to Greenland and from the Caribbean to Russia. Tom’s nautical career has seen him serve as mate on a merchant ship, captain on gentleman’s yachts and skipper of racing craft. Tom has been a Yachtmaster Examiner since 1978. He wrote and presented the BBC TV series, ‘The Boats That Built Britain’ and the popular ‘Boatyard’ series.