Weather helm problem

Hi all,

I have bad weather helm sailing cat rigged - not so bad sloop rigged. So I was wondering, is there any way to deal with the CAUSE of this problem, other than raking the mast forward? The mast isn't raked back excessively.
Thanks,
Greg.

I'm not a Mossie sailor but first step will be to look at sail shape. You want to suck the draft fwd and open up the trailing edge of the sail.

Once that is done if you still have too much weather helm (and you're not wanting to change mast rake) then you need to push the rudders further under the transom.

Many thanks to Scarecrow, most helpful and not even a Mossie sailor!

I tried to post last night, but something malfunctioned with the page.
My suggestion then was also to adjust the rudderblade rake. If you post a picture of your set-up I'm sure you'd get plenty of assistance in adjusting them, assuming that you can't work it out yourself. It's critical that both rudders are parallel and raked evenly too. Could be worth checking.

Many thanks to Hack for the advice.

I was wanting to deal with the cause of the problem rather than just reducing the tiller tug. I don't think the boat should be wanting to turn into the wind that hard. I'm sure that steering away from the wind that much is slowing me down.

I will re-check the rudders for parallel and even rake. Thanks for the advice.

Well Hack was right; the rudders weren't raked evenly, and that was causing much of the problem. I still have a bit too much weather helm, and so still a bit more tuning to do, but definitely a great improvement. Many thanks to hack.

Hi Greg,

I have been thinking about your problem. Now that you have sorted the rudders, has the weather helm also occured since you have been using the main you got of Matt? If so scarecrow is pointing you in the right direction, because the sail is much fuller than your old sail. So will probably require more downhaul, as this pulls the draft forward and opens the leech of the sail. I think I mentioned to you about a minimum downhaul setting I use on my sails upwind as any less causes too much weather helm.

Hi Gary,

The weather helm actually got worse when we started using Matt's sail. The old sail is so stretched that we couldn't adjust the downhaul on it, so I have only started learning about that since using Matt's sail.

I remember you talking about opening the leech at Forster, but I didn't quite get it then. I'm starting to get it now. Thanks for your continuing advice.

Regards,
Greg.