On the Verge of Flipping-Over a Cruising Cat...

[danielamartindm]

My two cents:

Excessive weather helm is an indication that you're overpowered and/or your sail plan is unbalanced. This can happen insidiously, and if the rudders are deflected off centerline to counteract it to the point of sailing a straight-ahead course with large rudder deflections, the rudders will function more like underwater appendages than foils. On smaller vessels with tillers, this is less likely to occur because you have the benefit of seeing how far over the tiller is; with wheel steering, it's easier to lose awareness of the king spoke's position. Resist compensating for excessive weather helm with steering; better to reef, trim, de-power, or balance your sails. For most of us, our vessels sail better than we do; so when they tell us things, we should be a rapt audience.