Weather helm

[Alyosius]

Well as anyone who spends time on seabreeze may know I took my wife out on Galini for the first time on the weekend - which went very well.

However two things became apparent to me:
1st - Any time we tacked Galini would continue turning for a significant distance once we took the helm off, even when counter helm was applied - not great when trying to stay as close to the wind as possible.
2nd was the amount of weather helm we had to carry to keep her pointed where we wanted to go. Without it she would round up quite sharply.

Now the second (and probably the first) I assume is SSE (Stupid Skipper Error) or not trimming the sails right.
So for my own education I wanted to check I had the theory correct (for a Tophat working into the wind, I'm aware this is different for each design):
- If the boat turns into the wind you are either producing too much power with your main or not enough with the foresail. Solution: slacken/reef the main or bring on the foresail
- If the boat turns away from the wind you are producing too much with the foresail or not enough with the main. Solution slacken the foresail or bring on the main.

Is that (in a nutshell) what I should be looking for? And is being badly balanced (turning into the wind) likely what was causing the over correction when tacking?

Thanks for the wisdom.

(oh, as a completely unrelated aside does anyone know the height from waterline to the base of the mast? I've found the dimensions of my mast and want to work out my overhead clearance)

[percyverhance]

Hard on the wind i find it helps to put a reef in the main and move the traveller to windward and get the boom almost to the centreline of the boat.Top Hats seem to be driven very much by the headsail.Cheers.Dave

[bearmcnally]

Top Hats are headsail driven and the main is really only to balance and to form a sail slot so the yacht will point . Reef first then reduce headsails . Egret ll loved one reef (She's only got one reef) and her number 2 heady to 12 kts and the her working jib after that. In fresh breezes you don't try and make a Top Hat point just sail off with a little bit of knuckle in the heady and that will make a big difference in sail performance.

Cheers Bear

[Tales]

It's easy to over power a Top Hat by putting up too much sail.

Here's how I used to do it - on the wind with 2 on board.

#1, full main - 0 to 12 knots (get the #1 down when you see any whitecaps or you will stretch it).
#2, full main - 10 to 16 knots
#2, 1 reef 14 to 18 knots
#3, 1 reef 16 to 20 knots
#3, 2 reefs 18 to 24 knots
Storm jib and 3 reefs over 25 knots.

see also
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1832

Cheers,

Tom