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Being a sailor, I've been carefully paying attention to the Orca reports, they seem to like the modern sail boat fin rudders which have no skeg (vertical suppor
by gibsonf1 2y ago
Being a sailor, I've been carefully paying attention to the Orca reports, they seem to like the modern sail boat fin rudders which have no skeg (vertical support attached to hull with hinged rudder behind) and is pretty easy to knock off the boat with little damage to the Orca. I heard about a boat with a skeg-hung rudder that stopped dead in the water in that area, but was able to continue on with a working rudder. When hauled out later, the hinge mount of the rudder had been twisted quite a bit off the skeg, so that Orca got a headache, and decided to move on.
- BoxOfRain 2y agoI wonder if any boats with a traditional long keel have been affected? I'd expect that arrangement to be even less attractive to an orca given there's no gap between the rudder and keel.
- gibsonf1 2y agoI haven't heard of any Orca success with either skeg-hung or long keel boats. A big "new" development in sailboat design is dropping the skeg on rudders for better sailing performance and lower cost even on blue-water sail boats. And also going with twin fin rudders, so more targets on a single boat for Orca's to play with. So faster and cheaper but far less safe.