Weather helm
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2015 5:04 pmWell 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)
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)