Emergency Steering

Below is a schematic sketch of a emergency steering recently installed.

The concept is to create a tight continuous loop, involving the various tillers (rudders & sonic drive), to which a pole or additional lines can be attach for steering.

An advantage of the Gemini is that it has two rudders and the sonic drive that can be used to control the boat. Depending upon what failed, different configurations can be used to steer the boat. If the teleflex cable fails then it is disconnected and the red line is attached to the two rudder tillers. If one rudder fails then the blue line is disconnected from its tiller and attached to the red line. If both rudders fail then the red and blue lines are joined and steering is accomplished by turning the sonic drive.

On my last cruise I did not want to do any of the above so the emergency steering show below was constructed. It has been working very well for over a year.

The boat was not altered for the block installations. The lower two blocks are tied to the stantions and the two blocks on the hull are mounted to the backside of the rub rail bolts.