Csellars
Member
Many twin screw powered boats have a hard time turning thru a cross wind using engines only. I was giving a lesson in Los Angeles harbor and the customer told me that a guy on his dock told him never to use the rudder. I said really let’s put that to a test, so we went down a fairway with a 15 knot tail wind and asked him to turn the boat 180 degrees with no rudder. The boat got to a 45 degree angle and he couldn’t get the bow thru the wind no matter how much throttle he gave. At this point we were going about 2 knots sideways and he was panicking. We put the helm hard over and came thru the wind. I always teach people to use some rudder in tight situations. If you are walking a boat on engines alone full rudder will make the stern walk more as you take rudder out the bow can be made to walk more and somewhere in between the boat will walk evenly. All boats aren’t the same.