Typhoon SENIOR: weather helm HELP!

[DaveCD28]

Thanks for the thoughts on Main trim...I wish it were that simple! This is not a subtle tug on the tiller, when I say "weather helm", rather this is a real struggle when the wind picks up. I have a new main, and trim makes no significant impact (unless of course one lets the main out so far that it basically is non -functional)...

so, I appreciate the suggestions but this problem is not main trim- perhaps raking the mast forward will help, perhaps not (I think it might impact this slightly) but I suspect this is a boat that will need to be sailed in brisk wind with an early reef and a big jib. Would be good to hear from other Ty Sr owners, tho....

Thanks again

JW

Rolling in the genoa can help alot with weather helm. Weather helm is caused from two things when the wind is brisk:

1. Pressure on the main trying to round up the boat is a small portion of it

2. The other big thing is the hull shape in the water when the boat heels over.

When the boat is heeling too much and the keel is sticking out sideways, it has friction and is acting like a lever trying to turn the boat into the wind, with the lee side offering very little resistance, meanwhile the main is trying to push the lee side forward. So when the boat is set up right, you will have a weather helm. This will increase with the boat's heel angle since the keel moves father and farther out to windward and the drive from the sails moves father and farther to lee. The drive from the genoa or jib is also on the lee side.

Normally on a sloop the first thing you reef is the genoa down to a working jib size as Cathy stated. And typically you'd reef for the gusts. The next is take a reef in the main, etc...

The whole idea of reefing is not to try to keep the boat from having weather helm when it's 45' on it's side, but rather to keep the angle of heel from getting that bad in the first place, which causes the weather helm.

I would experiment with reducing the sail in a balanced fashion to keep the boat heeled no more than 20' or so with the sails set properly for the wind direction and see how she does before I go through all the monkey motion of moving the mast forward and aft. Racers will do that to try and get every ounce of speed out of thier boats, but if you are only moving the mast an inch or two, it's probably not going to make much of a difference to regular folks. Remember, just because the boat is heeling more doesn't mean it's going faster.

Good luck and fair winds!

-Dave

PS: 45 degrees may be an exaggeration to how you're actually sailing her but I was trying to get the point across of alot of heel.

[Mike Raehl]

Twenty knots and five to seven foot "swells" on Lake Michigan yesterday afternoon. So with this thread freshly in mind, I had one reef in the mainsail and the 135 genoa furled to about 110. Made a consistent six plus knots with 10 to 15 degree heel and a very balanced tiller. One hand lightly on the tiller and she was up and over the swells with aplomb. Best sail of the season! Thanks to all for this thread.

[Joe Myerson]

Mike,

I'm glad it worked out well for you.

With my Alberg-designed 25D (your 25 isn't an Alberg, for whatever that's worth), I find that the mainsail should always be reefed at about 15 knots.

I'm not alone in this -- in fact, I got this advice from following this board ever since I owned Creme Brulee.

The sequence that seems to work well is:
1) first reef at roughly 15 kts.
2) reduce size of genoa, first to about 110%
3) second reef
4) reduce genny to 100% or even less

Best,

--Joe

[Gary M]

John,

This post helped me. Click on the link and review, especially what Russell has to say. I own a CD 22, much like yours, and my weather helm is cured.

http://www.capedory.org/board/viewtopic ... ather+helm

Gary

[drysuit2]

Thanks everyone- this pretty much validates my plan to
basically reef early and reef often given that there's no magic bullet.....I thought my new main would help, but not really-

I will also rake the mast forward a tad although dunno how much that will help...

I'm kinda spoiled with my well-balanced Ty Weekender, and my previous boats...but maybe Alberg didn't quite get the balance right somehow on the Senior (could that be why so few were made?)

JW

Just a thought here...Have you gone sailing with your Sailmaker who cut you your new main? He or she would be able to identify if the sail is cut properly , if you need to change the way you trim it, or if the problem is comming from one of your "other" sails.

It drives me crazy when I hear folks talk about making drastic changes to their boats sailplan when they are not absolutely certain it's not a sail trim problem. And it almoast always is.

You want to tweek you mast rake? Buy a J80. Want a simple boat that practically sails its self? Buy a CD

[John383]

Hi folks, just an update-
with a new main sail, and reefing when necessary, this problem has been largely solved- thanks for the help! JOHN W.

[John383]

Hi folks, just an update-
with a new main sail carefully trimmed, and reefing when necessary, this problem has been largely solved- thanks for the help! JOHN W.

[Dick Kobayashi]

Lots of expert advice here. Just two thoughts -1) make the adjustments incrementally on a test sail and record how each adjustment affects wh. 2) reefing reduces wind pressure on the end of a very long lever arm (your mast) which is mostly why it works.