weather helm

In a laser the best prevention to weather helm that i find is keeping the boat flat. If its flat there should be almost no weatherhelm at all.
 
Are you "feathering" while sailing upwind in breeze? That will also help keep the boat flat and make weather helm go away.
 
What about when going downwind? I find it really hard sometimes when its really windy to keep it from heading itself up, and then it usually ends up dumping me or I bend my tiller extension. How do I stop that weatherhelm??
 
Stephanie Barry
It sounds to me like you are way overpowered. If this is happening, You can try moving down to a radial. Pulling your main in to decrease sail area (Make sure your sail is not out past 90 degrees). Tighten your vang a bit, this prevent the wind from spilling off the leech of the sail thus preventing deathrolls, and giving yourself a little more control in the boat. And power down your sails (tighten cunningham, outhaul). These techniques will cost you pure speed but will definetly help in the long run if you can not control your boat.
P.S. If you are having serious problem with bending your aluminum tiller extension, it might be time for you to move up to a carbon fibre tiller extension.
 
Does fore/aft sitting position make much difference ? ie sitting too far forward means centre of resistance is further forward and maybe centre of effort (on sail) is behind this, meaning weather helm. Does the weight/position of the sailor make much difference to this ? At 65kg I tend to round up in gusts over 12knots and thought I might be sitting too far forward - I intend trying further back next time out.
 
lasersailor173707 said:
What about when going downwind? I find it really hard sometimes when its really windy to keep it from heading itself up, and then it usually ends up dumping me or I bend my tiller extension. How do I stop that weatherhelm??
Click to expand...

One thing to make sure to do (in addition to depowering) is to heel the boat to weather and bring the center-of-effort (CE) of the sail over the center of the boat. When you're going downwind, you shouldn't have any force on the tiller at all (at least, most of the time).

Check out the articles on drLaser about downwind sailing:
http://www.drlaser.org/frm/plfBHCf.html

I highly recommend Steve Cockerill's article (esp. the videos):
http://www.roostersailing.com/articles/4TH DIM WEB ARTICLE.HTML

Also, check out these threads:
http://laserforum.org/showthread.php?t=1315
http://laserforum.org/showthread.php?t=1318
http://laserforum.org/showthread.php?t=1317

Cheers,

Geoff S.
 
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