Emergency Tiller

It’s count-down time.  Only 30 days before we leave our DOMINO to her babysitter at the Balboa Yacht Club and she needs to be in top form.  As soon as we come back from our US trip, it will be a final haul-out, below-waterline inspection, antifouling paint, and off to the Galapagos.  So, whatever needs to be done before taking the big jump across the Pacific, it’s now.

The pivot (below) bolts into the support plate; the extension (top) bolts into the pivot Easy to store, fast to install

We’ve built redundancies in just about every system. Twin engines, of course;  full navigation system with iPad and separate laptop backups; battery charging through the genset, the engines, or solar panels; emergency 12V batteries; water-maker and rain-water collection system with hand-pump; electric bilge pumps and manual backup; and more parts that we can ever think of.  What was missing was an emergency steering system.

Emergency tiller... all set

What would we do if our hydraulic steering failed?  JP had been pondering this question for a while, proposing various schemes and drawings, but nothing totally to his satisfaction.  Then, we met Ricardo Crompton, through a lucky “strike.”  When we were hitby lightning last year in the San Blas, our local John Deere team flew to our anchorage within 36 hours of the strike and fixed our engines.  That’s service!  Later, Ruben –the service director for John Deere Panama—introduced us to his dad, Ricardo.  His machine shop is a pure treasure.  Ricardo can fix anything!  Drawing from a lifetime experience with boat mechanics, first in the merchant marine, then working on big machines and boats on the Panama Canal, Ricardo took a look at JP’s idea for an emergency tiller.  Not quite to his liking.  Between trolling a linebehind DOMINO and sharing a few beers, Ricardo kept thinking.  He came up with his own design, took measurements, and voila!  An emergency tiller.

The stainless steel mounting plate is bolted permanently on top of rudder arm.  In the event of an emergency, it would be very simple to open the rudder shelf hatch, attach the pivoting tube and bolt its extension to it.  We can sit on the platform steps and steer from there, protected by the high coaming.

Simple assembly: only 2 bolts.

Not that we’d really be happy or comfortable, and we hope we’ll never need to use this emergency tiller.  But it’s one redundancy we have to have.  Cross that off the list of things to do before the Puddle Jump!

Ricardo Crompton (right) and son Robert (center) share a sundowner with JP in Las Brisas de Amador, Panama

Thanks, Ricardo… and if you’re in Panama and need a great machine shop, leave us a comment below, we’ll send you Ricardo’s number!   Now, let’s go catch a fish!

That would work... not that we ever want to use it!

Until next time…

dominomarie