Fishtail rudder

[KezzerN]

It is surprising just how much difference it makes, especially on bends and turning the boat.

[DHutch]

1 hour ago, Rod Stewart said:

I believe Ian hasn't got sole (see what I did there) rights to the schilling rudder on this forum.

The site owner @DHutch made one and fitted it to his boat IIRC. He also contributed to the wiki page on the subject...

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schilling_rudder

 

I suspect the reason they are not generally fitted is one of cost.

Guilty as charged! 

 

This is the rudder fitted to Emily Anne, which we found did improve handling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schilling_rudder#/media/File:Schilling_CAD.jpg

 

Daniel

 

54 minutes ago, IanD said:

The propeller, this is prop walk in action. It's made worse if the water flow into the prop is not too good, for example a short swim or a blunt end to it or the prop too close to it, all of which are common on narrowboats.

Also if the prop is damaged/bend/etc, close to the uxter plate at the top as most are, and if close to the bottom of the canal as can also be the case in shallow waters!  Also, its not at all unheard of for rudders to be bent, and or set up so they turn a different amount one way to the other. You can also have too much rudder angle as well as not enough.

 

Daniel

[IanD]

The rudder with the "nick" (twisted trailing edge) is the proprietary Becker-Schilling...

 

https://becker-marine-systems.com/products/manoeuvring-systems/becker-schilling-rudder

 

18 minutes ago, DHutch said:

Guilty as charged! 

 

This is the rudder fitted to Emily Anne, which we found did improve handling.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schilling_rudder#/media/File:Schilling_CAD.jpg

 

Daniel

 

Also if the prop is damaged/bend/etc, close to the uxter plate at the top as most are, and if close to the bottom of the canal as can also be the case in shallow waters!  Also, its not at all unheard of for rudders to be bent, and or set up so they turn a different amount one way to the other. You can also have too much rudder angle as well as not enough.

 

Daniel

 

Lots of causes of asymmetric steering, which shows up as both faster turning one way than the other but also the need to keep a large constant sideways force on the tiller to keep the boat straight -- I've been on some boats where this was enough to make it quite tiring to steer, also if you let go of the tiller the boat immediately starts to turn (usually towards the bank on the right!) instead of carrying on in a straight line.

 

I expect @DHutch will agree, I've found the rudder works really well up to much bigger tiller angles than normal -- push it right over to 70 degrees or so (way past where a flat plate rudder becomes useless) and the wake comes out almost sideways, like having a stern thruster -- you can literally spin the boat on the spot much faster than with a normal rudder (especially with a BT as well!) and without moving forwards at all.

 

Not just my imagination or self-justification, others who have steered the boat have found exactly the same... 😉 

Edited March 13 by IanD