When you say the boat turns sharply to the right in reverse, I presume you mean the back swings to the left?
Dave. No - because the propeller is big enough to blank off the rudder and exerts a powerful paddlewheel effect she does actually turn if she is moving forward - it can make life a bit exciting if I have to do an emergency stop if an oncoming boat grabs a bridge when I'm not expecting it. I was on a Finnish lake steamer when she had to go into a pier on the wrong side because a yacht was in her usual berth - despite the crew being very experienced they hit the pier a fair welt. Obviously in these cases, though the propeller is walking the stern across to one side, the hull is still moving forward towards the other, which is what you hit. About 10 years ago we were coming down Stockton with an engineer friend in the engine-room and his wife on the tiller. She didn't line up quite right for the lock so he put the engine into reverse quite hard and swung the boat through about 30 degrees. So he backed off and tried again and she swung more; eventually they went through 360 degrees and got into the lock the second time round... That was with a smaller propeller than I have now! Sean [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
