My Reynolds 21, in anything over 18 knots of air with associated ocean chop, it just doesn't want to balance and gets extremely hard to drive. The helm gets so tight it requires a female bulgarian shotputter to move. Although the helm is relatively balanced, it gets very tight when boat speed is around 15 knots. I switched to nacra 5.8 rudders, worked very hard to balance the rake on them, worked hard to balance mast rake. The boat feels quite balanced and easy to drive in under 15 knots of wind, (light weather helm) the problem seems worst when reaching to broad reaching, especially when large breaking whitecaps try to drive the lee bow off. I have sailed on and driven lots of multis in similiar conditions so I hope I aint too dum a driver. Any suggestions on what is causing/how to resolve this nasty habit? Thanks!
AS you say that the main problems are off the wind (and so both rudders are in the water) are the rudders both Parrellel ?
Try raising your boards(Plates hey Simon?) a bit, and maybe even raising your windward rudder. This helps balance the I20, and takes alot of pressure off the boat.
David Mosley
Mitch,
It sounds like your rudders are either the wrong size or you do not have them adjusted in the vertical position correctly. As you get water pressure or resistance against them, the lever arm (in this case the rudder) loads up and by creating a moment, wherby you are countering it by pulling (or pushing) on your tiller. It sounds like the same thing you would experience when you can't put you rudders down all the way in shallow water and try to steer. You don't need it too far out to create a very large force working against you. I'm sure that it works eponentially too according to your speed.
Just my 2 cents.
Mitch...That is a tough one. When you said the helm gets 'tight' do you mean it gets difficult to move in both directions? If so, it suggests to me that as the rudders get heavily loaded they don't rotate freely on the rudder pins. I've never heard of anything like that and it seems unlikely to me. I guess you could check by pushing laterally on the rudder and turning it at the same time.
While the helm is getting tight, does it try to head to wind at the same time? What about mast rake in conjuntion with udder rake? The continuum transfunctioner could tip off its axis and cause world of problems...
Does the reynolds 21 have dagger boards (plates?)
I once installed the rudders backwards on my Hobie 18 which left them toed in badly. The helm felt like a ton of bricks and the boat wouldn't tack.
Nacra 5.8 rudders sound awefully small for that boat - but I'm no expert.
Often in higher windspeeds drivers crack the main or ease main traveler witout a corosponding ease of the jib. This causes lee helm and is easily corrected by easing jib to match. The inverse of this is also possible if the jib leads are too far outboard so the jib is luffing going upwind because you are overpowered. You can also try moving body weight fore and aft to ballence the helm.
Eric
I'll try and answer some of your input/questions. In the most recent case of "rudder lockup" I had both boards down (seems to ease helm, but maybe not?) main traveller cracked off slightly. All main and jib telltales flowing nicely except the very top of the jib was venting some air from twist and my jib trimmer tends not to keep up with my ancient surfer driving techniue. One problem is the daggerboards are very thick, might that be causing cavitation all the way back to the rudders? I think cavitation was definetely a big problem with the old thick rudders. I lengthened the nacra rudders to make them deeper because of the higher/deeper transoms of the reynolds. I have heard of this problem with the boat before, some dudes in santa cruz got "locked in" and were stuck going downhill for miles in heavy air. The problem only seems dangerous when I don't cleanly slice off the top of a breaking wave and it wants to drive the lee bow off when I want the boat to s-turn down the face and through the trough, or when I might run out of sea room. It's never been a problem when going to weather, feathering in big puffs etc. thanks for our consideration. p.s. I've driven a new reynolds 33 in similiar condtions and it is very very sweet and very very fast.
Hey Mitch
When driving off in big wind the bow is further down in the water, so more forward hull is in the water driving the boat totally straight. This means less rudder is in the water as well, though not always. What happens is the hull is like a big, long rudder itself driving the boat. Due to your speed through the water there is equal (and a lot) of pressure on both sides of forward section of the hull. I'm not too familiar with the R21, but maybe it's the amount of bow in the water. I think these guys are right. Crack off the main a little and put some twist in the top of the main so the head is not leveraging the bow too deep, so your steerage comes back. Going downwind and reaching in waves I like some twist to take the pressure off the rudders and give me more steerage with less bow driving the boat straight. You could also get deeper rudders with less cord length. That would for sure help your helm. As a matter of fact, that's what I'd do, get rudders with as much surface area or more as the 5.8s but make them higher aspect so you don't fight the high pressure on the aft section of the rudder. Good luck.
Hello,
Sounds like you are surfing off the wind and overtaking waves. since you are sans spi. shouldn't the boards be mostly up? They don't do much good in the situation that you desribe. you want side slip not traking. also a badly oversheeted jib would give problems surfing. also the better the rudders are suited to the boat, the better the steering. more mast rake may help, but that is an uninformed suggestion.
Actually side slipping - spinnaker or no spinnaker, is still a bad thing. Think about it this way; does your boat move easier through the water straight ahead or sideways? If you're side slipping you have more drag in the water.