Steering Failure in the Mid Atlantic - Disaster Strikes!
Day 21 : Ascension to Azores - Part 2 of 2
Thursday April 7th 2022
It started predictably enough. I was on watch and had just uploaded the daily update blog (Jen’s “So Frustrating”), when I started to hear a slightly odd noise coming from the steering. It was subtle, but undeniably there. Just a soft tap, or clicking sound, every now and then as the autopilot moved the wheel.
We’ve long since learned not to ignore these sounds. So as Jen came into the cockpit for watch handover at 9am, I made her listen to the noise, and we agreed it was time for our customary on-passage “rip the bloody bed apart” moment.
Once we’d done so, we could see the source of the problem – our backup autoplit ram was rubbing against the frame of the bed. Which was odd. It usually has 2mm or 3mm of clearance, which is not much, but enough that it never touches. So why was it doing so now?
We spent a while trying to get to the bottom of it, and never really worked it out. But we reconfigured the way it attached to the tiller extension arm so that it took up marginally less height, which reinstated the clearance. And figured that would have to do.
As part of this, we’d checked all the fastenings for the autopilot in case one was loose and that had allowed it to shift a little. But there were no issues there. Before we put the bed together, we took the opportunity to check all the others bolts around the steering system, and found the one that connected the ram from the gearbox to the tiller (yes, that ram from Lord Howe) was just a little loose, so I cinched it up an 8th of a turn, and we slowly put the bed back together again.
After that, it was time for breakfast, and a rueful shake of the head about our bloody curse.
One hour later, we lost all steering!
The wheel was turning, but nothing was happening. We put the genoa away, and ripped the aft cabin apart for the second time in an hour. Within moments our annoyance at having to do so was banished, to be replaced instead with a gulp as we realised we had a real problem on our hands.
That same bolt that I’d cinched an eight of a turn (with no torque required, I might add), had sheared entirely.
With hindsight, it had already gone, and that was what had caused the tiller arm to move slightly, causing the autopilot ram to shift a few millimetres and start rubbing on the bed.
As we took the sheared fitting apart, it became clear that it was no ordinary bolt.
It’s a specialist part machined in stainless steel, comprising of a bolt, bush and sleeve, all in one, which then connects to a ball joint. Obviously we don’t have a spare one of those!!
It was the bolt part that had sheered, but since it is connected to the bush and sleeve, we can’t just replace the bolt (not that we have one that size anyway).
It was time to call on the MacGyver skills we’ve been busy developing since those heady days on the way to Lord Howe 5 years ago.
We certainly knew there was no reason to panic. With the amount of tools and stainless steel hardware on board the boat, we felt sure we’d be able to make some kind of temporary fix.
The question was how?
The first step was to make sure the boat was OK to look after itself. We went back on deck, and spent some time working out the right sail configuration.
There was about 20 to 25 knots of wind blowing, and 2.5m to 3m seas. Quite sporty, but not outrageous by any means. The “go to“ solution in these circumstances is to “heave to”, but that requires the use of a rudder to counterbalance the sails, and right now, our rudder wasn’t working.
After a bit of thought, we left up just the mizzen, sheeted in tightly, and stood by for 5 minutes to see what would happen. Steely settled into a reasonable approximation of heaving to all by herself. We were drifting downwind at about 1 knot, and although the rudder was banging back and forwards a little as we had no way of stopping it, and we were being buffeted by the waves, overall it was reasonably comfortable. Certainly enough to be able to get to work.
Many of our discussions over the last couple of days have involved speculating about our date of arrival in the Azores. As it draws closer, and we have visibility of the weather forecast all the way between here and there, we could start to pin down an arrival date with a little more confidnece And annoyingly, it’s been looking like we might get there over the Easter weekend, which might mean we’d have to stay on board for a few more days waiting for covid tests etc.
But suddenly, all thought of when we might arrive was out the window. We had plenty of time on our side, decent weather, lots of sea room, and a boatful of supplies and tools to enable us to find a fix.
6 or 7 hours later, we’d fabricated a replacement part. We took one of the large stainless steel bolts from a giant seacock valve that we replaced in the Seychelles, and cut it to length. It’s a M10, and the bolt that came out was a M12, so it’s a little thinner than the original, which meant we needed to make an extra bush to “pad it out” a little.
We did that by drilling the centre out of an old socket until it was just the right diameter, and slipping that over the bolt.
The original part also had a ring around it that was used as a spacer to keep the ram from rubbing on the tiller arm, so we cut the closed loop end off a 17mm ring spanner to make a replacement spacer/sleeve.
We were back in business, and qute proud of ourselves in the meantime. It was Jen’s awesome idea to drill out the socket for the bush, and the ring spanner as a spacer was all mine. Top marks to both of us for creativity.
We tested the solution for an hour, and because it’s not an exact fit, there was a little bit of play in the ram at the end of its travel, which concerned us that we might end up stressing the bolt each time the play is taken up. Since the bolt is thinner than the old one, we were concerned that maybe that extra play would result in some premature wear.
We discovered that the original complex machined part had an extra rebate on it which was providing the ram with some stability as it mated with the tiller arm, and the absence of that rebate in our MacGyver solution was what was causing the extra movement.
A few hours later, we’d drilled out another socket from our old defunct socket set, and tapped it so that we could hold it on the new bolt at exactly the right position to serve as the rebate replacement (another awesome Jen idea).
The good news? The steering is working like a charm, and we’ve eliminated the extra movement (at least what we can see visibly).
The bad news : there is some soft clicking sounds coming from our Frankenstein solution with every third or fourth steering movement. We think that that is just an inevitable result of having 5 or 6 pieces of metal cobbled together to replace one custom machined part – that its just minor microscopic movements between the metal, and not something that will cause a problem.
And overall we’re feeling good that this solution will get us to Azores safely enough, We have another 5 of those same bolts, so we can always manufacture another one if the first one wears out quickly.
In the meantime though, we’re sleeping elsewhere on the boat – we’re not putting that bed back together again for at least a couple more days! No sense in tempting fate.
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Day 21 Statistics:
Time on passage so far: 20 days, 21 hours
Distance covered in last 24 hours: 108 nm
Average Speed in last 24 hours: 4.5 knots
Official Length of intended Route when we set out: 3,480 nm
Current Projected Distance to Go according to chart plotter: 1,193 nm
Distance Sailed so Far: 2,434 nm
Total Projected Distance of Route: (2,434 + 1,193) 3,627 nm
Change in total projected distance in last 24 hours: +2 miles
Number of lockers, compartments and boxes we went into yesterday looking for constituent components to fabricate our new ram connector – Too many to count. Let’s just say all of them, Twice.
Number of times I’ve gone into the aft cabin to check on the steering since we resumed sailing 10 hours ago - 53
