Emergency Steering: What to Do When Your Boat's Steering Fails

Pull back to idle and shift to neutral. Note where you are, which way the wind and current are pushing you, and how much room you have. Have someone keep watch for traffic. If it's safe, turn on your navigation lights or deck lights so others can see you.

Dropping the anchor buys time to work without drifting. If you can't hold and danger is close, call the Coast Guard or your tow service before you start tinkering. "PAN-PAN" on VHF 16 is the urgency call for a boat in trouble without immediate danger to life.

Practical Sailor retells a race-boat loss that shows why: after the rudder broke, the crew spent more than two hours trying one unpracticed jury-rig after another, turned down offers of help and waited to call MAYDAY, and the boat was driven onto a surf-swept ledge where a crew member drowned. If your first fix isn't working and the shore is getting closer, make the call and accept the help while you keep working; you can always cancel.

With the engine off:

• Outboard: look at the steering link arm and the bolt, nut and cotter pin that join the cable or hydraulic ram to the engine. A missing pin is a common, easy fix if you carry spares.
• Cable steering: does the wheel turn freely while the engine doesn't move (broken cable), or is everything locked (seized cable or tilt tube)?
• Hydraulic steering: look for fluid on the floor at the helm or around the cylinder at the engine. A soft, spinning wheel usually means air or a fluid leak.
• Inboard/sailboat: check the quadrant, cables or linkage at the rudder post, and look over the stern at the rudder.

See the hydraulic steering and steering cable guides for what each finding means.

A makeshift steering method only works if the engine or rudder can swing. Boating Magazine stresses carrying tools to free the drive, engine or rudder even if you can't fix the steering itself. On an outboard or sterndrive that may mean unbolting the cable or ram from the steering arm. Also center the engine or rudder: Boating Magazine notes that a drive stuck hard over makes only slow, wide circles.

On a twin-engine boat, you can steer with the shifters. Boating Magazine explains it simply: to turn to starboard (right), put the port (left) engine in gear and leave the starboard one in neutral. For a tighter turn, put the starboard engine in reverse, but only at slow speed. Keep the drives or rudders centered. Rudders and drives still help when they work, so don't fight them. Different boats behave differently, which is why you practice (step 11).

A boat turns toward the side where you drag something through the water. Boating Magazine describes steering home with a paddle and then a landing net held alongside, braced by a crew member's leg while sitting on the gunwale (wearing a life jacket). It's tiring and imprecise, but it works at slow speeds. On a single engine you can also use the wind and current: a little thrust combined with the drift can carry you where you want to go.

For longer distances, tow a drag device off the stern on a bridle:

• Bucket (small boats): Boating Magazine suggests a heavy plastic bucket with the bottom cut out, the wire handle replaced with stout line (or holes drilled a few inches below the rim with a bowline through them), tied to the middle of a line about twice the boat's beam. Tie each end of that bridle to a strong stern cleat or tow eye. Shorten the bridle on the side you want to turn toward.
• Commercial drogue (larger boats): Practical Sailor strongly advises against a bucket on bigger boats: it tows unsteadily, the handle can rip out, and the drag is only enough for boats up to about 25 feet. A cone-shaped drogue sized by the maker for your boat is steadier. Use a length of chain to keep it under water, and a fender to help recover it.

Start with the bridle lines long (Practical Sailor suggests about one and a half boat lengths) and a gentle downwind course. Pull in one side to turn that way, ease it to straighten out. Go slow: speed makes the loads huge and tangles the lines. Keep lines away from the propeller, and shift to neutral when you haul the drogue in. Expect downwind and reaching courses to be easiest; heading into the wind is hard.

Many inboard boats and sailboats have an emergency tiller that fits over the top of the rudder post, under a deck plate or in the lazarette. Boating Magazine notes that on inboards someone may have to steer from the engine room or lazarette. Before you need it, check that:

• the tiller is aboard and you know where it is
• the deck plate opens (bring the key or tool)
• it fits the rudder post and the steering cables can be disconnected so it can turn
• it's long enough to give useful leverage in waves
• it's strong enough: Practical Sailor warns that some emergency tillers seem to be added mainly to tick a certification box, and in their experience many wouldn't survive days of steering in rough weather; if you go offshore, look hard at the tiller and how it locks onto the rudder post

On a sailboat with wheel steering, a parted steering cable often shows up as the boat suddenly rounding up into the wind with the wheel spinning uselessly. BoatUS contributing editor Mark Corke had exactly that happen on a calm day; the emergency tiller had them sailing again within minutes. Most pedestal systems use a short chain over a sprocket joined to wire cables that run around sheaves to the rudder quadrant, and every one of those contact points wears.

An outboard has no rudder post. Some owners lash a pole or gaff to the engine as a tiller; Boating Magazine describes a cowling destroyed by a taped-on gaff that barely held. A small kicker motor with its own tiller can be the best backup on a fishing boat. Trim tabs can nudge the boat in calm water. Whatever you try, keep hands and feet away from the propeller and only make adjustments with the engine off.

Once a season, on a calm day with plenty of room:

• Twin engines: steer a figure eight using only the shifters.
• Single engine: try your bucket or drogue for a few hundred yards.
• Inboard/sailboat: fit the emergency tiller at the dock, then try it underway. You'll find out what's missing (a key, a pin, a line) while it's easy to fix.

Most steering failures give warning. Grease outboard steering tubes and check the link bolt and cotter pin, check hydraulic fluid and look for leaks, and replace a stiff cable before it seizes. Look over the rudder and bearings at every haul-out (see rudder bearings). After hitting anything, check the steering before you get back on plane.

Two quick habits from BoatUS:

• Hydraulic outboard steering: before each trip, turn the wheel lock to lock and look for drips at the helm fittings and the engine cylinder, and for a wheel that feels spongy (air). Many owners bleed the system at the start of each season.
• Sailboat wheel steering: once a year, open up the pedestal and the quadrant area and look for broken wire strands, frayed spots at the sheaves and loose fasteners. A cable that wears slowly out of sight is what usually parts.

If you ever replace hydraulic parts, don't buy a used cylinder unless you're sure it's the right one for your exact engine; BoatUS warns that mismatched cylinders can bind or come loose.