Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

rs2k

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I know how much effort it takes to turn a stern drive, but I can't imagine a rudder being very difficult to turn. I assume the difficulty would increase as speed increased unless the rudder was hydrodynamically counterbalanced. Do inboard boats ever use power steering systems for a rudder?
 

tashasdaddy

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

some do, some don't. some use cable steering, some hydrolic, some power.
 

MikDee

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

The small 18' inboard boats I had were not very hard to turn, usually easier then an I/O, and no they had no power steering like an I/O does.
 

CAVU V

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

The one thing I noticed is the response, i/o the boat reacts immediately because of the vectored thrust, inboards a little bit slower.
 

H20Rat

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

they are all counterbalanced to some extent, not 100 but enough to make a difference.
 

MikDee

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

I did learn this, there is no steering in reverse with an inboard :eek: It just tends to go in the direction the prop is turning :rolleyes:
 

salty87

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

you should be able to turn the steering wheel with one finger, tournament inboard ski boat at least. that's w/o power steering. speed might add a small percentage of resistance but 1 finger should still be able to do it.

reverse takes a little grace but it's simple once you get comfortable with it. you might not be used to using small bumps of forward and reverse almost interchangeably to swing the stern where you need it to go. the stern always swings to the same side so it's not unpredictable.
 

Ned L

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

As 'Salty' said, one finger should do it (OK, so I spent some time on a 95' eastern rigged dragger that you sort of needed to lean on the wheel a bit to keep in a straight line). Anything less than 60' or so should be an easy one finger.
One advantage about the steering on an inboard is (if it is loose enough) it will tend to come back to straight on its own, kind of like a car, turn the wheel to take a corner & then when you let go it will seek straight ahead again on its own. (Though this is probably not so true with hydraulic steering or push/pull cable steering). An outboard or inboard/outboard (IO) will naturally want to continue on its own to a full hard over turn.
 

Mike Robinson

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Re: Does it take much effort to turn a rudder on an inboard engine boat?

I used to work on 140' WWII vintage ex American minesweeper (MV Marabell) that had shaft and cable steering linkage with twin rudders. (big cables!) It wasn't too hard to turn in manual mode but the wheel was about 5' in diameter. One could steer with electric power assist but it jumped in 3 degree intervals and tended to wander too much when trying to hold a steady course at cruising speed so I only used it when manuevering in tight quarters.
 
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