How often does a rudder get jammed like that as opposed to other steering failures?

I once met a British guy in Bermuda on a small Hunter. His rudder snapped off about 600 nm from there. He rigged a spinnaker pole across his stern and a bucket drogue to get himself back to Bermuda. There he ordered a new rudder from Hunter - they actually had one in stock. Pulled the old rudder post and put the new rudder in without hauling out and proceeded on his way. They never called for help until they were outside St. Georges cut and asked for a tow. I admire that kind of resourcefulness.

When First Light lost it's rudder conditions were far less benign. We were at sea, about 1000 miles behind them and that was the roughest Atlantic crossing I had ever experienced - wave trains from multiple directions. First Light's owner/skipper tried to jury rig a rudder for three or four days while other boats stood by. They tried at least twice to tow it. In those conditions they couldn't do it and abandoned the boat. Some time later it washed up in Barbados intact but was quickly plundered by the locals. Perhaps someone could have stayed aboard and called for a tow for when they drifted close to land but it would have been a very long, rough, unpredictable ride.

I met some cruisers in NZ that had a hydraulic steering failure. IIRC the Beneteau? had an emergency tiller that required them to sit on the transom to steer. And it had very poor leverage. The were exhausted when they reached Opua after a week of hand steering. They never called for assistance but were on the SSB net daily.

There was a case a few years ago where a new 70 footer was abandoned by a delivery crew after a steering failure. I don't remember the details.

My more mundane story was a steering cable failure approaching Bermuda meant that I came through St. Georges cut on autopilot. With permission I dropped anchor, replaced the cable and then proceeded to Ordinance island to check in.

What am I saying by my ramblings? Sometimes skill and determination will get you through, like the Hunter and the Beneteau. Sometime, like with First Light try as you will conditions are against you. That new 70 footer was a big loss and it looked like little was tried to save it, after all, it was insured and the delivery crew had little stake in saving it.

Could they have dropped the rudder? Could they have removed the starter from a running engine and moved it to the other one? Maybe, maybe not. It depends on their skill, their resolve and their motivation.

Bottom line is that they took a prototype boat to sea without proper trials and obviously did not consider the WHAT IF questions. They put the USCG to great expense and the rescue team at great risk because that was the convenient thing to do. They refused to be taken off by a ship because it was eastbound and they wanted to go home. The USCG should have told them to get on the ship or fix their own problems.

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