Crew replaces rudder with cabin door

Crew replaces rudder with cabin door
08:17 AM CST on Friday, April 1, 2005

Associated Press


WELLINGTON, New Zealand - Talk about being creative in a pinch.

Six men aboard a Russian yacht used a cabin door to help steer the crippled
vessel. It sailed -- limped, really -- into New Zealand's Wellington Harbor
on Friday after a month at sea with the makeshift rudder.

The crew of the Apostol Andrey was relieved to make land after battling high
seas in the storm-tossed Southern Ocean on the disabled 50-foot yacht,
skipper Nikolay Litau said.

Owned by a Moscow adventure club, the boat was going around Antarctica when
it lost its rudder about 1,306 miles south of New Zealand on March 3, he
said.

The crew decided to replace it with the cabin door and try to make their way
toward New Zealand, the nearest land.

The crew alerted Moscow's maritime rescue coordination center and it
contacted New Zealand's Rescue Coordination Center, sparking several weeks
of close communication between the boat, its owners, the rescue center and
the Russian Embassy in New Zealand's capital, Wellington.

"Forty days at sea was a little difficult," Litau said.

Rescue center officer Mike Roberts described the crew's journey to New
Zealand as a "fine piece of seamanship."

"They are obviously highly experienced people. They were in an isolated
place and coped very well in extremely difficult circumstances," he said.

On Friday the men were focused on their immediate plans -- showers and
lunch.

In article <ffJ3e.52672$AN1.39127@fed1read03>,
"Renegade" <az_renegade.TakeThisOut@nospamcox.net> wrote:

 > Six men aboard a Russian yacht used a cabin door to help steer the crippled
 > vessel. It sailed -- limped, really -- into New Zealand's Wellington Harbor
 > on Friday after a month at sea with the makeshift rudder.

Impressive... but I doubt I'm the only one on this newsgroup who's
already figured out what they'll do if the rudder goes "krunch" in the
night. [our port setee extension is our backup; we carry spare pintles.]

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
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