weather helm

[Mark F]

Sailing my E27 (wheel) in moderate to strong conditions I get a lot of weather helm on starboard tacks. In light winds the helm is pretty well balanced, both starboard and port tack. In 14 knots and above the wheel on a port tack will be at most positioned at 1:30 and on starboard tack at 7:00 or even 6:00. Anyone have any thoughts on what to check? I did get rid of the tabernacling gear on my rigging in the past few months and took care (or so I thought) to keep the rigging the same.

Thanks

 

[Emerald]

I think I'd start by making sure the masthead is centered. Take the main halyard and use it to "measure" to the upper shroud chain plates on port and starboard, and make sure it's the same. Once you've got the masthead centered, I'd then be looking to make sure the mast is straight and not being pulled off to one side by the lower shrouds. If you're mast head is not centered, I believe the correct sequence is to loosen your lowers, center the masthead, tension the uppers, and then work on evenly tensioning the lowers so you don't put an "S" into the mast by pulling it one way or the other. We have some real experts here on rigging and tuning and there have been some good past threads you might be able to dig up with a thread search.

 

[Antares]

Following the same train of thought, if you find your mast is centered by measurement, check if the sails are setting the same from side to side. I had a boat that the toe rails were not the same height and it was by observing the way the jib set when going to weather finally let us make some improvements. We initially noticed the distance from the spreader tips on each tack was the same, but the relationship to the life lines was different. After some experimenting, the boat sailed the most consistently tack to tack with the masthead about a half inch to port as measured at the toe rails.

Larry

 

[Seth]

On the right track

Once you have determined that the rig is centered and everything else is symmetric (it should be on the E boats), the next suspect will be your rudder..
Could be the post/shaft is bent and the rudder is not straight in the boat (could have been from a rough grounding), or possibly as the result of an old poorly done repair, the foil shape is not the same on either side of the rudder.

The latter can be fixed with putty and epoxy. If the post/shaft is bent you may need to rebuild or replace the rudder-neither are prohibitive, just a hassle....

I suspect a rudder problem

S