Wheel Response - Your Input is Appreciated

Barry Cohen

Barry Cohen

YOLO at Boston Waterboat Marina
Joined
Jun 30, 2010
Messages
481
Fluid Motion Model
R-31 S
Hull Identification Number
FMLT3116K122
Non-Fluid Motion Model
2011 R-27 Classic (Traded Up)
Vessel Name
YOLO
MMSI Number
338451282
After sailing for 10 years, we now own an R-27. This has been the first full week-end of use.

Our Catalina 28 Mark II had a 32" wheel and 3+ feet of rudder. We all know what the R-27 has and I have to tell you the responsiveness of the R-27 is slow and scary. So I am asking for any and all Tugnutters to weigh in with your words of wisdom. My initial feeling is I just have to get out there and get use to it. But if you have some tips, I would surely appreciate them.
 
Barry --- Since you and I seem to be following the same path I feel compelled to respond. All my life I have had sailboats, my last also being a Catalina 28 mark II. Your saying that slow speed turning is scary is dead on. Above five knots you will have no trouble. Below five knots the small rudder has very little response. I have the same marina slip for my R25 that I had for the C28. I must admit that I missed the slip the first few times in. After much practice I learned to swallow my pride and use the thrusters for steering. My procedure is to back straight out of the slip and then spin the boat with both thrusters. Coming in, I stop outside the slip, spin the boat and go in. The only thing sailboats and powerboats have in common is the water under them. The best thing about a powerboat is that I am now driving inside with the heater on, and at my age that is a blessing. --- Cary
 
I also agree at slow speed the steering is sluggish. Now I know why the thrusters are on the boa,t without them it would be difficult to dock in a slip. I must say the thrusters are great and I always make sure those little yellow lights are glowing before docking and before launching!
 
I do alot of salmon fishing this is a slow speed operation below 3 Knots. I have notice that when I use the autopilot
this really help the steering problem. I hope this helps.

Dennis
Tug of my Heart 11
R 27
 
Steering improves when you provide more water flow across the rudder, ie., use short throttle bursts. Takes some practice, but you should learn the process. Thrusters can fail, and it/they will surely wait for lousy conditions when they decide to give up the ghost.

I learned, what little I know, with an Albin trawler-single screw, no thruster. Find an open area that has sufficient water depth and something to mark your position, a post, tree, whatever. Practice, practice, practice.

Gene
 
Barry: We have an R-27 on order so I find your comment very interesting but will have to wait until the August delivery to have an actual experience. With that said our last boat was a 40', semi displacement hulled fast trawler and it to was not as responsive at the low speeds you referred to, at higher trawler traveling speeds it was fine. Maybe this is a characteristics of semi-displacement fast trawlers? A friend of mine had the identical boat to my 40' and had a larger rudder installed and this made a remarkable difference at those low docking speeds. The down side was that at higher speeds above normal trawler speed the boat was more sensitive to steering changes. If you don't plan on traveling at higher speeds then a larger rudder could solve the issue without jepordizing safety with high speed sensitivity and or if you had the boat on auto pilot at the higher speeds you would not notice it as much. Are there any Tug Nuts out their that have installed a larger rudder?
 
I agree with most of what has been said. My observations.....quick throttle bursts are effective, no steerage in reverse, the bow thruster is my best friend. If it ever breaks....get out the outboard or call for a tow. Oh yea, rent a port side dock!!!!
 
Barry:

Fin keel sailboats with a separate spade rudder are probably the most maneuberable slow-speed single-scew boats around. But not all sailboats behave that way. I sail a gaff-rigged traditional catboat. With the centerboard raised, its underwater profile is remarkably similar to my R-21EC, except that the catboat's fairbody rises at the stern to "clear the run" (and results in a much smaller wake at 5 kts than my R-21). The catboat shocked me when I first sailed it with its slow turning compared with the fin keel/spade rudder sailboats I was used to. Frankly, the R-21 is more maneuverable than the catboat under power at slow speed, unless I lower the catboat's centerboard.

I don't claim expertise, but the trick I have learned to turn the R-21 in a tight circle is to start from a virtual stand-still with the rudder hard over. As others have written, apply a short burst of power -- enough to cause the stern to swing but not enough to get appreciable forward motion. The boat will turn in less than 2 boat lengths.

I suspect that the R-21 has a proportionally bigger rudder than the R-27, given that the R-21 is expected to operate at slower speeds, so my maneuverability solution may be simpler than yours.

All that said, I am not too proud to use the thruster (bow only). The tradition in my marina is to back into the slip. The "alleyway" between rows is no more than 1.5 boat lengths wide. Docking in a strong cross wind without a thruster would be beyond my skill level.

-- John H
 
Not an R-27 driver, but a long time sailor who has come to appreciate the protection of a pilothouse boat. I think most sailors experience just what you are going through. Each boat brings something different to the experience, and your boat is certainly different. For the first few days we owned our boat, I thought I had made a big mistake... especially when it came to pulling into a slip. I spent a lot of that first week practicing: first with a throwable cushion out in open water, and then by pulling in and out of a bunch of unoccupied slips... bow in, stern in, port tie, starboard tie. By the end of the week, I was feeling very confident in the boat and my ability to control it. The first time we were in conditions that would have left us soaking wet with the sailboat, but we were dry and comfortable in our powercruiser, I knew we were onto something good.

The more you use it, the more you will appreciate the unique qualities. Congrats on the new boat, and know you are not alone in your first impressions. It's a learning process, and SO worth the effort to learn the new skill set.

Best wishes,
Jim B.
 
Just more support for previous comments. Short, assertive bursts of throttle allow steering responsiveness in reverse. This works much better then steady or gradual increases of power in reverse, which I have found the boat to be remarkably non-responsive to. I learned this technique from Frank of Ainokea. Thanks, Gene, for explaining why this magic works!
 
Thanks to all those who have thus far commented on my post.

Actually, docking and un-docking has not been too mcuh of a problem.

Over the weekend, we experienced 15-20 knot winds and choppy water. It was in these conditions and under 10 knots of speed that we found the unresponsiveness to be at its worst. A gust would come up or we would take waves broadside and the boat would round up like a sailboat and we would be 20-30 degrees off before the boat would begin to right itself. Then of course, becasue of the slow responsiveness, I found myself oversteering and working like crazy to get it straight again.

It goes back to the big wheel, big rudder thing. Our Catalina responded like a car. The R-27........not so much. We will keep at it until we are experts, but if you have more thoughts, please keep them coming.
 
I forgot to mention that as we increased our speed past 10 knots and up to 16 knots the responsiveness did improve.
 
I am not very salty although I have spent a lot of time on boats that my friends own, mostly outboards, and after my first 2 hours on my new Ranger 25SC I asked Andrew if a bigger rudder would help. I find the ability to manuver at slow speeds very scary and if anyone has put a bigger rudder on the boat I would be very interested in finding out more about the cost. In as much as the boat is really built as a pleasure boat I find it hard to have much pleasure while trying to put it in a birth. I really like the style, comfort and value of the boat- I looked a long time at a lot of boats. I would recommend that anyone thinking of buying this boat should spend a lot of time driving it prior to buying to make sure that they are comfortable with the handling characteristics. I expect to spend a lot of time learning and hopefully not bumping into too many docks. Has anyone tried anything with the trim tabs at slow speeds to affect handling?

Nzfisher
 
As was said in a previous post, short bursts of power will initiate turns quite nicely but require a little familiarity with the control stick to avoid embarassing ones self. Backing into a slip is amazingly easy once you realize that the rudder is irrelevant.......reverse with an equal amount of neutral and the use of the bow thruster....you can really impress the dock groupies with a little practice. I launched my boat on April 14th, the day after ice out and got in plenty of practice time with no witnesses. The old "learning curve"....and it's tougher for us seniors.
 
Most of my Ranger experience was with the R21EC. I did pilot several R25s and commented in this forum that I felt the R21EC "handled" better than the R25. If one looks at the rudder on both, it is obvious the 21's rudder is larger for its size. That said, both vessels respond better when they have adequate water flow across the rudder. Either by boat movement or prop wash. This issue isn't confined to Ranger tugs. Boating literature is full of articles on this subject. Some folks even go to articulating rudders, a large tab on the aft end of the rudder.

In any case, single engine shaft driven boats behave pretty much the same.

One thing I did find out with R21EC is that the rudder position will make a difference in the direction the vessel will go if one is in open water and driving backwards for some distance, say two or more boat lengths. It takes a little time and boat speed for it to respond. My marina had the docks so close together there wasn't room for it to respond. If I was lucky and positioned the the boat exactly right I could back in without the thruster. Maybe, once every 25 attempts, can't claim to be skillful. 😎

Gene
 
All:

I just want you to know that Peter Haywood (Winter Island Yacht Yard, Salem, MA) and Andrew Custis (Ranger Tugs)spent some time with YOLO last weekend tracking down a water leak. While there, I happened to mention my issue with wheel response and within 30 seconds they were able to determine that most of my hydraulic fluid in the steering system had leaked out due to a faulty fitting.

The next morning, the fitting was replaced along with the hydraulic fluid and the boat now handles great. I was worried for a while that this situation was going to cause me some problems, but now, even the little lady is happy.

Thanks a gain to Peter and Andrew.
 
Everything about boat design is a trade-off. Consider this: I can throw the wheel on my R25 hard over at WOT without so much as spilling a drop out of a full glass on the counter (you may ask what the glass was full of or why I put the wheel hard over at WOT...). So the rudder is well designed for putting the wheel hard over at WOT. In fact, I find the boat handles extremely well and is very tolerant of "driver error" at anything above idle speed. So for docking I have bow and stern thrusters - and I use them.
 
I have come to believe that you look for the simple solution first. I improved the steering response dramatically on my Ranger 27 by bleeding the hydraulic system the way it should be done. The bleeding procedure is spelled out in the literature that comes with your boat and is pretty straight forward. Do not make the mistake of recharging the fluid that you are introducing into the system during the bleeding process with fluid you have drained from the system. This fluid has air in it and you must wait 24 hours to allow this air to escape. If you follow the bleeding instructions precisely, you will cure most of your steering problems.

Hal Teasdale

Captain & Commander TUG-a-BEAR
 
I will respond to this post. I happen to drive up on my way home from the East Coast Rendezvous and visit with Barry. I was there to look at some other issues on the boat and introduce myself when Barry brought this topic up to me. I went over to the helm and realized why he thought the boat didn't handle well. I spun the wheel 10 times before it would "somewhat" stop and quickly explained to Barry that he had a leak. Returned the next day and re-bled the steering and fixed the leak at the bleeder valve on the hydraulic ram and he is on his way.

Waited about two days for Barry to email me and he says its a world of difference. Amazing what a hydraulic steering feels like when there is no fluid. 😀 We all make mistakes and this was certainly a factory mistake. I do not mind talking about it as I know Barry is very courteous about keeping his comments to himself. Thought I could end this thread and hopefully Barry will respond by telling how well the tugs response is. :shock:
 
This is what happens when I respond without reading the second page. :lol:
 
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