My Boat Won’t Steer Astern!
How often have I heard this cry from fellow yacht owners? Many hundreds of times I
suspect over the years!
In reality it is simply not true.
All boats will steer when going astern so long as the way that a rudder works is understood by us owners, and we allow it to do so.
To start at the beginning, we have to understand that any rudder will stall (and no
longer work) when the angle of attack of the water flow over it exceeds 16 degrees. I
know that when we are going ahead we can put our rudder hard over to approximately 33 degrees and it does not stall (stop working). This is simply because as
soon as we start to put the rudder over the boat’s stern starts to swing rapidly in the
direction of the turn which reduces the angle of attack of the wate ȁ