Most of the Maine windjammers don’t have an engine, which is the way things should be in the best of all possible worlds. They maneuver in and out of some very tight harbors–Camden comes to mind–fitting their unwieldy hull shapes and tiny (in scale) rudders into some surprising situations.
For the most part they maneuver with the aid of their long boats, most of which are used pusher fashion, as you would a tug on the seen of a barge.
Any sailor worth his/her salt would ask the logical question, “How do you turn those beasts?”
The answer is here, for those of you thinking about doing this with your own dinghy. The dinghy, acting as a tug, is thrusting at right angle to the ship’s centerline, forcing the stern around much more effectively than will be the case with rudder alone. Since the dink has an inboard engine, the transom hung rudder is pushed hard over. If you were doing this with the outboard you would turn the outboard tiler in the saw fashion. If the outboard has wheel steering, then the steering wheel would be turned opposite the direction you want the big boat to go, which in the situation shown here would be to starboard.
It is worth practicing this from time to time, just in case it is required at some point in the future.
Posted by Steve Dashew (September 22, 2012)
September 23rd, 2012 at 12:00 pm
We’ve been doing this for a few years with our little cutter rigged catboat looking vessel (yes, it’s not a catboat, but this gives you a mental image) and it works great. We’ve got a 8hp 4 stroke Honda on the inflatable and it pushes us at 4.4 kts, but the real advantage comes with docking in tight spaces or slips made for much larger boats. It’s a snap to handle and maneuver standing in the bow of the dinghy while hanging on to the backstay. Just push and pull on the backstay swivels the dinghy stern and steers the sailboat. When moving the stern to tie off to pilings I usually swivel the outboard instead. Going in reverse with this arrangement is much more controllable than the inboard diesel.
September 27th, 2012 at 4:45 am
They are called yawl boats here in Maine and are used like bow thrusters as well, often communicating between the skipper and boatman by VHF. Fun to listen in on in tight situations.
September 28th, 2012 at 4:00 am
A very clever setup they have, thanks for sharing these photo’s. I used the Avon like this in heavy brash ice. At idle the boat wanted to move too fast, and in and out of gear was frustrating with poor steerage. The Avons 10 HP motor was perfect, pushing her at 1/2 a knot with good control. We also used the Avon as a bow-thruster. Very handy in a tight spot, with hand signals and a short bow line so it could pull as well as push.