would hold up during a 2 or 3 knot backwards push with the linkage breaking and the rudder free wheeling into the stop? It seems to me that that kind of a situation is not out of the ream of possibility. I was backing up at two or three knots once while trying to beat some current and wind (full keel boat) and accidently let the wheel get loose from my grip. It came hard up against the stop but didn't do any damage. I have to say that I was surprised but not overly so. I was also involved with pulling a full keel boat off the reef at Puerta Platta in the Dominican Republic. It had been pounding on the keel so hard that it drove it up into the hull so far that the hull flexed enough for the rudder to come out of it gudgeon and bend over to the side. The rudder still didn't break loose from the shaft. That's the kind of workman ship that I would expect to see on a half million dollar boat. These kids worked on the local fishing fleet boats and helped us repair the rudder well enough to make it to Puerto Rico.