CD 22

[Brian H]

Hello,

I'm about to order a new headsail and am still somewhat undecided. I currently have a 150 genoa which is way too big and a 100 jib which is fine, except for it being old and tired.

With the 100 jib, I'm able to keep the full main up with little or no weather helm in 15 knots.

Do any of you 22'ers have a 110 headsail? If so, do you run the sheets through the deck padeyes or the genoa tracks?


With a 110 do you feel the need to reef the main or partially furl the headsail in 15 knots of wind?

Thanks,
Brian

[Gary M]

Brian,

I want to know your secret. I'm determined to solve my weather helm problem.

My boat came with a 100, 150, 170. I usually use the 100 and it is fine up to 10 to 12 when weather helm starts to be an issue.

A post on this board said ease the back stay 4 turns and pull in the fore stay four turns. I did, no results. I'm considering another round.

Do you know why you experience so little weather helm?

I'm considering recutting my 150 to make it a high cut 125 because I've been told the 100 is too small to balance with the main!

Easing the traveler on the main sheet does help.

Gary

[seadawg]

With full main and 100 jib I also get some weather helm at 15 knots and thats when I reef the main for a very nice balance and keeps the rails out of the water. At or before the wind reaches 20 knots I tie in the second set of reefs. I also use a storm jib occasionally that seems to balance well with the double reefed main. My 22 does not sail well with only one sail up. The only configuration I haven't tried is the 150 by itself. Cheers, Charlie

[Russell]

A post on this board said ease the back stay 4 turns and pull in the fore stay four turns. I did, no results. I'm considering another round.

This makes no sense to me. Now I am no rigger or sail maker, so I may not understand this entirely right. Tensioning the backstay introduces bend into the mast. Bend in the mast encourages the main to spill air earlier, thus reduce weather helm in gusts and higher winds. Weather helm tends to happen due to too much effort being focused aft, thus causing the boat to round up. The easiest ways to combat this are to ease the main or put in a reef, or if wind is light put up a larger headsail. Far far too many people oversheet their main much of the time, or tend to go the easy route of furling their headsail first rather then reefing their main first, this will cause a tremendous amount of weather helm (unless you have a huge headsail). I have found on my CD, that often oversheeting the main does give me a bit more speed, but at the sake of boat balance, the choice thens to be trim for best speed and lose balance, or trim for balance and lose a few fractions of a knot. I honestly think that CDs, or the CD36 at least, is an inheriently inbalanced boat.

My cape dory, which is granted larger, but based on the same design pricipals has weather helm issues as well, most due to the main being a bit too large I think compared to the yankee jib/staysail, I tend to always sail with a reef in anytime the wind is forward of the beam (but I sail in the trade winds, so lots of wind, this is normal).

I dunno, but the advice of ease the backstay and tension the forestay seems exactly opposite of the advice I would give when having weather helm issues. CDs were not designed to handle a lot of mast prebend, but they certainly benefit from a slight amount of it.

[Jerry Hammernik]

One of the standard cures to reduce weather helm is to rake the mast forward. On my first CD a 25 I had the headstay shortened a couple of inches. It made a huge improvement in the helm.

I'm no naval architect, but I believe it has to do with moving the center of effort in relation to the center of lateral resistance.

It worked for me, but you're mileage may vary.

[tartansailor]

I use my 150 genoa more than any other head sail.
A lot of sailors are missing the point.
This is the regimen that should be followed;
Adjust sails in the following order:
TWIST
TRIM
HELM
DRAFT.

If you have excess weather helm, put TWIST in the main to
spill air aloft. Conversely for lee helm apply more vang.

Then trim to optimize speed for course and conditions.

Then fine tune helm by slot adjustment.

Then adjust draft for speed.

Is everyone glued to the tell tales?

Hope this helps.

Dick

[Jack Carr]

For 20 years I sailed my 22 with the 150 up most of the time. When the winds start picking up I would reef and/or put up the 100 or storm jib. I do a lot of solo sailing and going forward to yank some new sail up can be interesting on a bumpy day. Then I got smart and bought a rolling reefer with a 130 sail. Why didn't I do that a long time ago?

[hughesw]

I also have a 130 on a roller reefing. It is made by Doyle and is probably 10 years old, but in decent shape. It seems to be a good medium sized sail for general purposes. I've only felt the need to reduce the size of it once in gusty 15-20 mph conditions. I usually reef the main first if weather helm becomes excessive.

It has been my understanding that the driving force in a mast-head rig is in the headsail, and the main balances the rig out. YMMV.

The only thing I don't like about the 130 is that is not particularly good going down wind in a light breeze. It is made of 5 or 6 oz Dacron, which makes it a bit stiff and heavy. Now that we're in the Dog Days (or should I say DAHWG) down here in Georgia, which means a lot of brutally hot days and light and variable winds, I would really like to have a nice big 150% genoa.

Seems to me that age and condition of the sails has to be taken into account when reducing weather helm. It is difficult to flatten older, but not necessairly blown out sails to spill off wind. My strategy is to flatten the main as much as possible and drop the traveler to leeward, which seems to help. The forestay is currently about as tight as it can be and the back stay has about enough thread to put a cotter pin thru it.

The mast on the CD-22 (mine anyway) is fairly flexible and seems to be pretty sensitive to rig tuning, so there may be some advantage to spending time fine tuning the rig to reduce weather helm further.

I have never been a big fan of roller furlers. This is my first experience using one, and there was a bit of a learning curve learning how to set it up correctly (without loosing parts overboard)and using it. I quite like it now, but I think I still prefer having specific sized hank-on headsails. If that were the case, and if I were buying a sail now I would probably go with a 130. A hank-on 130 would not have the UV protetion along the luff and foot, which would probably make it more cooperative downwind.

Just my experience,

Warren H.

[The Patriot]

... I'm about to order a new headsail and am still somewhat undecided. I currently have a 150 genoa which is way too big and a 100 jib which is fine, except for it being old and tired ... With the 100 jib, I'm able to keep the full main up with little or no weather helm in 15 knots ... With a 110 do you feel the need to reef the main or partially furl the headsail in 15 knots of wind? ...

First, you should not be surprised that a reef is indicated at 15 knots (true, of course). Fifteen true can be, depending on the point of sail, somewhere between 18 and 20 apparent, and most long keel boats will benefit from a reef in the main in this wind range. In fact offshore I almost always carry a reef above 12 knots true just because the motion is easier. The comfort factor is not to be ignored.

Second, I am "married" to hank-on jibs and have six of them (1-150, 2-130, 3-110, 4-club, 5-spitfire, 6-storm). The most useful sail in the inventory is a rather new (for me) 130 with a reef that takes it down to 110 or so. On my two last cruises I used this headsail almost exclusively over a fairly wide range of conditions. In light air the difference between the 130 and the 150 is only evident going uphill in flat (i.e., protected) waters. Who prefers going to weather anyway? When the wind freshens it's much less bother tying in a reef than changing down. This method allso keeps a wet messy pile of canvas (read "Dacron") on deck where it belongs instead of all over the accomodation.

In short consider talking to the sailmaker about a 130 with a reef. It's just like getting two sails for the price of one, and a lot cheaper than a roller furler.

[Troy Scott]

Brian,

I bought a new CD22 way back when. I can say from personal experience that with the sails that came from Cape Dory, weather helm was always a problem. We tried everything short of moving the base of the mast forward. The best results came from flattening (or reefing) the main and sailing with a large headsail. I wonder if your main has been recut to be flatter?

I agree that most folks miss the point of the advice to loosen the backstay/tighten the headstay. If you change nothing else, this should flatten the main. But it's a strange compensation at best. I'd rather have normally adjusted standing rigging. If I had it to do over, I'd do just what we did then: flatten the main by recutting.

I also owned a CD25, which had even MORE weather helm. The best close-hauled speed and balance came from a 150 genoa and a double reefed main. The same was true of my Ty.

[seadawg]

Very interesting and helpful post Troy, thank you. I usually tie in a lot of downhaul that flattens and moves the main draft slightly forward and down and that seems to help also.Cheers, Charlie.

[Troy Scott]

Charlie,

Exactly.

-Troy