Standing rigging and weather helm on port tack.

[Pete7]

By chance, does this yacht have a lifting keel?

Pete

[LittleWing77]

That picture of the gap at the bottom of the mast is truly ugly. And does seem to suggest that the mast is listing.

Good luck with your next steps. They all sound sensible to me....
LittleWing77

[Bullshooter]

Well, OP, did you ever figure it out?

[Greensleeves29]

Today I had a chance to test the adjustments that I made, so I thought I would write an update for anyone interested. I took my dad out with me and I think he may have spotted the issue. It will be quite embarrassing for me if so, as I ruled it out early on in this thread.

I will describe the adjustments I made recently before this sail:
I fitted a wedge under the mast this lifted the mast up a few mm and took the weight off the pivot bolt. I also wedged thin pieces of nylon between the sides of the mast and the tabernacle, to stop any side to side movement.
My backstay turnbuckle had run out of adjustment so I shortened it, then fitting a Stalok terminal. I re-tensioned the rigging following the method described in the Ivar Dedekam book.

So today I started sailing in 10kts of wind. I had one reef in the main and chose to use the 130% genoa.
Starboard tack was fine, a fairly neutral helm, looking up the mast I could see a slight bend at the masthead to leeward. Tacking onto port tack, the weather helm was noticeable immediately, but looking up the mast I judged it to be straight.
Then the wind picked up to 17kts+. I could not get her to heel less than 25 degrees. I had weather helm on both tacks but much more-so on the port tack as usual. I tried letting the mainsheet out until the top of the main started luffing which improved the weather helm slightly. Am I right in thinking that the genoa was too much for this wind but the reefed main was fine?

Now here is the embarrassing discovery: motoring through Portsmouth habour with both sails down, my dad noticed that he was having to steer somewhat to port to keep the boat straight and I don't think a boat can have weather helm under motor can it?
There is a small mark on top of the rudder shaft and this was not in line with the tiller head, its a small misalignment but extrapolated up the tiller it could make all the difference. We tried to adjust it there and test it, but I need a beefy flat head to undo the tiller head. I will be down to adjust it in a few days and can let everyone know what a fool I am.(If it wasn't already obvious.)

[LittleWing77]

Hey, we've all been fools at one time or another so please go easy on yourself.

I'm glad you provided us with an update. Fingers crossed that you've solved the mystery.

LittleWing77

(p.s. oh, and yes - your full 130% genny was too much canvas up front for those conditions.)

[Bullshooter]

Good job. Not a fool if you keep an open mind and eventually solve the problem.

Good luck and keep us posted.

[Greensleeves29]

I have been out sailing a lot over the last few weeks and have reached a conclusion of sorts. I spent some time working out how to steer with the sails and trying different sail combinations to notice effects on the helm. The tiller idea I posed earlier was a red herring, the assembly is designed in such a way that it does not have adjustment.

The first issue was often having too much sail up and not understanding sail trim very well. I didn't have enough tension on the mainsail foot, which meant it was too baggy. When I bought the boat it had an odd mix of lines back to the cockpit and some form of single line reefing. Now I have most things at the mast, which for me works a lot better, there is less friction so I can do everything quickly without a winch.

The reason why I only had problems on port tack is perhaps due to the usual course I took and the prevailing winds. I often head south out of Portsmouth and go over to a fort near the Isle of White before turning back, not very adventurous I know. This meant that in the morning I was usually on starboard tack and the afternoon, port. The wind is more often than not stronger in the afternoon so this was when I had the weather helm issue. I have tested this out by reefing the main when the wind gets past 10knts, I found this removed most of the weather helm. My mainsail has provision for a flattening reef so perhaps using it i could avoid reefing for a while.

But there is still a dissimilarity in the position of the tiller on alternate tacks. I was confusing this with weather helm because of the first issue. I think there is some part of the hull that is not quite right, I suspect the rudder. The previous owner replaced a part which I do not know the name of, I believe the equivalent in wooden boats is called the deadwood. So it seems possible that the previous owner refitted the rudder askew. I am not sure if this makes much sense as a conclusion, I have not really solved anything yet and I still have a some doubts.

[TrentePieds]

Quote: " The previous owner replaced a part which I do not know the name of, I believe the equivalent in wooden boats is called the deadwood..."

Greensleeves:

Yes, you are sort of right :-) The part the rudder in hung on would, in a wooden boat, be called the "stern post". The "deadwood" is a heavy timber knee that holds the sternpost onto the "keelson" - an inner keel that lies atop the "frames" that in turn lie atop the "keel timber". In way of the deadwood the space twixt keelson and keel timber is filled with a heavy piece of timber so the whole issue can be solidly bolted together. Nice to know, but not really relevant to your boat because she's GRP.

Because your hull is GRP it is most unlikely that the PO could have done anything that would have distorted the hull. That would have required major invasive surgery.

Your rudder should follow behind the boat like an obedient little puppy unless you do something with the tiller, and therefore the rudder should have zero effect on the "balance" of the boat as long as you don't touch the tiller, i.e. on whether you have "weather" or "lee" helm. It's almost inconceivable that your rudder wouldn't do that.

Trimming for just the slightest weather helm, which is what you want, is done with the rudder left free, i.e. without "steering" by the tiller while the trimming is taking place. How well your rudder and tiller play together can depend on many things, but in your boat the connexion twixt them must be extremely simple. If there is something amiss here, it won't give the boat either weather or lee helm. What can happen is that a misalignment of the tiller confuses a novice sailor :-)

Your tiller attaches to the rudder stock just above the cockpit floor, I think. so you can easily take a picture of that attachment. It would help if you could post such a picture. Then we can solve the problem if there is one there, or, alternatively we can put this consideration to bed.

Talk to you later

TP

[Hermia II]

Please check so that the tiller is in line with the rudder

[Greensleeves29]

This is the tiller head assembly.
http://imgur.com/a/ZRVFYoa


You can see the vertical marks on the rudder shaft. One is in line with the split in the tiller head and the other with a tapped hole. There is a countersunk bolt clamping the tiller head onto the rudder shaft, it was not particularly tight and the head was damaged so i replaced it (this was a few weeks ago). I am sure the tapped holes are not meant to be there, they could be a bodge to remove play caused by the aforementioned loose bolt.

The main bolt which passes through the whole assembly, fits into a machined circular cut away in the rudder shaft, therefore the bolt needs to be removed before the tiller head will part with the rudder shaft. This also means the scope for misalignment is small.

[TrentePieds]

Thanx, Greensleeves :-) That pic helps a lot. Things appear to be as "normal" as they need to be. The "cheeks" on the tiller embrace the casting that clamps to the top of the rudder stock the way the should. The casting "sticks out" forward of the stock in order to give the cheeks something to press against, since the forces developed by the tiller would, over time, elongate the bolt holes in the cheeks if the casting was not there.

The bolt that goes through the cheeks and the casting serves two purposes. The secondary one is to permit the tiller to swing up and down merely because that is a convenience. The PRIMARY purpose is to squeeze the casting around the rudder stock, and it is to facilitate that that the casting has a slot in its after side. But a little squeeze isn't enuff. There are two methods in use to overcome the inadequacy of the squeeze. 1) A "keyway" is machined into the fore side of the stock and in the foreside of the bore in the casting that slips over the stock. Into these two keyways is inserted a piece of "key stock", a length of square steel that provides the "key" that locks the casting on position on the stock. 2) The bolt that holds the cheeks of the tiller to the casting is positioned precisely so that it "interferes" with the stock. The shank (the smooth part of the bolt - not the threaded part) fits in a "rebate" (sounds like "rabbit") in the stock because while being made, the casting was accurately positioned on the stock, and the hole for the bolt was then bored so it took away some of the side of the stock. When the bolt is slipped in, the two parts lock together so they cannot twist in relation to each other. If you need me to, I can draw you a little sketch tomorrow. While whoever made your steering was on the right track, there IS, as far as I can see, a weekness in his understanding of what's required.

Your boat uses system #2, obviously. What we cannot see from this picture, and what we cannot know until you haul the boat, is whether the PO did some work on the RUDDER (not on the stern post) that caused the “tangs” (metal pieces within the GRP layup of the rudder) to go out of alignment with the mark on the end of the stock. If so, the mark will have become meaningless, but worse than that, the alignment the tiller will be irremediably (sort of) outta whack. If you can determine that that's really what happened I'll tell you how to fix it :-)

We need to think again about what the terms ”lee helm” and “weather helm” really mean. Tempting though it may be to think that they have, they have NOTHING to do with the way the tiller points :-) Those terms have to do with the way a boat BALANCES. Sailing normally with the wind before the beam, and the sails properly trimmed, the rudder of a boat like yours should trail behind like a puppy dog's tail gently wagging behind. It then has NO effect on the balance of the boat, and ideally the boat has neither weather nor lee helm. Where the tiller points is totally immaterial. It has nothing to do with the case whatever.

The balance of a boat is determined by where the Combined Centre Effort of all the sail you are carrying, the CCE, lies in relation to the Centre of Lateral Resistance, the CLR, of the under-water part of the hull, sans the rudder. If the CCE lies “too far” aft, the boat will be unbalanced and have “whether helm”. If the CCE lies "too far" forward, the boat will be unbalanced and have “lee helm”. If the position of the CCE is just right, the boat will be “balanced”, i.e. if has neither weather nor lee helm. I say again: It's immaterial whether the tiller lies centrally or off to one side.

I know nothing about C.R. Holman, the designer of your boat, other than that he has a number of successful yachts to his credit. It is unlikely, therefore, that he's “blown it” in the design of the E29. As designed, the boat will balance given the right combination of sails for the weather obtaining. If someone, like a PO, has made "improvements", it might not.

I'll have to leave it here for tonight, and I'll be off line tomorrow. Hang in there! We gotta speak more about "balance" and more about your mast step :-)

TP

[Greensleeves29]

I took apart the tiller head assembly so I understand how it works and why there cannot be much of a problem with it. I realise I have confused the position of the tiller with weather helm and I also understand that the most likely problem is with myself at the helm, so to hopefully clear this up I thought I would describe my experience this morning.

I sailed in winds that were consistently 15knts, measured with a handheld anemometer, nearby weather buoys confirmed this reading and measured gusts of over 20. I used the main with one reef and the 100% / working jib. On port tack close reach, the helm was heavy and the boat would turn up into the wind very quickly if left alone. When the top of the main was allowed to luff this improved things slightly. But to counter the gusts it required the tiller to be completely over to weather. Turning onto starboard tack, close reach, the helm was light and the boat would very slowly turn into the wind if left alone. When I let the top of the main luff she would steer herself. The degree of heel was quite equal on each tack, around 20-25 degrees. Now, would I be right to say that on starboard tack the boat was balanced very well and the CCE was exactly on top of the CLR? And on port tack I was experiencing weather helm, and the CCE was aft of the CLR?

Now a possibly irrelevant issue; the position of the tiller. I noticed that when motoring the tiller seems to prefer being at 5-10 degrees to port, by prefer I mean no matter what position the wind is, the tiller will return to this position. I don't think this is an effect of the prop. The tiller just feels "happier" in this position requiring a force to move away, i.e off centre from the hull.
Video of this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcqyRgh2k9k

All I can add about the mast tabernacle is that I believe it to be in the same place as the original design, the distance from the mast to the forestay deck fitting has not changed, and it's mounted on a large teak block which I think is original.

[TrentePieds]

Well, the asymmetry is a serous bother.* I can get to be like a terrier over those sorts of things, so let's revisit my comment that perhaps the repairs you mentioned were a rebuild of the rudder.* Many things could necessitate that.

Within the lay-up of the rudder itself there is, of course, the "stock", the "axle" that goes up into the hull and terminates in the tiller fitting.* In conventional construction of any rudder the involves a stock, there are pieces of flat-bar, called "tangs", that extend aft from the stock in order to prevent the stock from rotating within the lay-up.*

If, but I think we have no way of knowing at this time if it is so, these tangs have been bent, or removed and reattached at a wrong position on the stock's circumference before the lay-up itself was repaired, you would get precisely the effect you describe, viz that the tiller does not "center" (stay midships) when you have some amount of headway with neither sail nor engine driving the boat.*

5º would certainly be discernible as you sit at the tiller, and 10º would be most noticeable.* However, to expect an amatoor welder, or a DIY boat owner, to notice an angular displacement of this order when attaching tangs to a stock of, say, 2 inches diameter is to expect the impossible.* Additionally, the heat of welding induces distortion if you are not skilled and careful.* *Obviously there is a way of getting this operation right, but the person doing a rudder repair on your boat might not have known, what the method is - simple though it is!

If this were the only problem,* I think that I, for one, could just live with it.**

I looked at your video, and I note that you were motoring with no sail up, and that the seas were minimal. You remember my comment about the puppy tagging along behind. It appears that that is precisely what your rudder is doing. Just the way it should be. Answers to my next two questions are crucial: 1) When you let go the tiller, so no force is applied to the rudder, does the boat track in, basically, a straight line. 2) When by holding the tiller midships with whatever force is required to keep it there, does the boat turn to port?

Having watched this video, I am confirmed in my thoughts that the tiller is displaced on the stock. Or the tangs are. That, as I have said, has nothing to do with weather and lee helm. It's really no more than a nuisance we can fix later.

You are doing such a good job of dealing with this that I'm becoming afraid that I may be “talking down” to you. That is certainly not my intention and you need to know, therefore, that I do that to myself when I'm faced with an intractable problem :-)!

Now a little detour. If you already know this, then just consider your knowledge confirmed. We'll need this stuff later.

Imagine that you are motoring at say 3/4 power on water as still as a millpond.* The rotation of the screw will introduce something we call "prop walk".* While making headway it will be very slight, but discernible. If your screw is a "right hand screw", meaning that when you look at if from aft with your transmission in forward gear, the screw will turn the same way as the hands on a clock, this prop walk will induce a very slight tendency for the boat to turn to port.* If your screw is a "left hand screw" the induced turn will be to starboard. With wind and wave running you don't normally notice it, because the boat is constantly having its heading altered by the forces of wind and wave.

But when making sternway you most certainly DO notice the prop walk, and you use it cunningly to finesse your maneuvering in tight quarters. However, in boats with your boat's rudder set-up, and most particularly because of the tiller steering, you need to be MOST CAREFUL that you don't let the boat gather too much sternway, because doing so will slam the rudder hard over against the stops. This may indeed be how the rudder was damaged in the first place!!

If you have a right hand screw, the prop walk will swing your stern to port with quite some conviction. With your kind of rudder and a fairly short tiller, I dare say that if you hang onto the tiller really, really firmly, and let your sternway rise to, say, a knot and a half, all of a sudden the tiller will take charge and knock you right off your feet!

That discourse sort of finishes our consideration of the after end of your boat. That is not, IMO, where you will find the locus of your troubles.

But now I have to some REAL work I must do :-)! If you have a chance, I think it would be really, really good if you could close your companionway hatch so you can use the after edge of it as a datum. Then measure quite carefully the distance from the after edge of the hatch to the after side of the bulkhead aft of your toilet room. Make sure the tape is up under the overhead so it doesn't divert from the horizontal. Having noted that distance, measure the distance from the aft side of that bulkhead to the FORE side of the bulkhead FORWARD of you toilet room. Now measure from the aft edge of you hatch to the after side of you mast. When we have those three measurements, we'll talk about your tabernacle :-)

À la prochaine!

TrentePieds

[Greensleeves29]

Thanks for your time TrentePieds,



The distance from the edge of the companionway hatch to the aft side of the aft bulkhead is 223cm.
The distance from the aft side of the aft bulkhead to the fore side of the forward bulkhead is 63cm.
The distance from the edge of the companionway hatch to the rear of the mast is 248cm.

[Bullshooter]

In for the discussion.