please help diagnose lee helm ocean voyager 26

[john manning]

I think lee helm and difficulty crossing the wind in a tack are two separate issues.
I have the same problem taking when my mainsail is full and my foresails are reefed. I need a jib or genoa balancing the main to tack. If I run a full main and a staysail then when tacking the yacht goes into irons and hoves to.

NB. My mast is set vertically or even slightly forward, no rake to the rear. I bought it like that and have never changed it.

[sanibel sailor]

The design "looks right" to me. You need another set of eyes on it.


Three pages and not a single photo of the boat. Doesn't everyone have pictures of their boat?

[sanibel sailor]

Ketch/yawl conversion would be tough with long-ish boom, narrow double-end stern for shrouds, little hull depth for bury if not deck stepped and a tiller and backstay to contend with. All solvable but not simple.

[georgelewisray]

Ballast, Trim, Rig ::
Most classic boat designs have working roots and workboats never had the luxury of painting a waterline and then saying "That line is where the boat must float." the design constraint would be more like "Minimum Safe Freeboard" and between empty and max payload things change a lot so as a minimum shifting trim ballast was a way of life. Since your not carrying large amounts cargo but have a relatively fixed load of interior furniture/systems/consumables you have the freedom to adjust the normal draft and trim to achieve best performance then leave it there. Since you notice weird handling characteristics why assume that only your rig can be changed to achieve the handling you desire ?? Seems to me to be a mistake to assume that the 'Original' draft/trim line is either the 'PROPER' one or best one for you. In fact draft might be better + or - a few inches easy and trim according to what performs best. Your stuck with hull shape and to change the rig is probably to much work and $$$$ so change whats left to change. Draft/Trim until it works. ///// Play with trim is easy, Ballast is harder . . . Having a good NA to help you thru this seems like a good investment.

[Dr.No]

Hello Tarnacc,
I can’t help at all with any design issues, but I did a major part of the building of the last six Voyagers. Voyager Marine was a wonderful Mom and Pop operation, that ended in 1983. It was literally Bill Randall, his wife Mary, and their son Gary doing meticulous hand layup of the hulls and decks in a small shop. These were then released to a contracted crew of two guys. A partner and I built the rest of the last six boats, except for the lead, engine install, and some of the wiring, which Bill did. We were installing a sweet little BMW diesel, and using quality parts and materials throughout. A few of these vessels have crossed the Atlantic. Please contact me if I can help with any building information. Cheers!

[Dr.No]

Something that hasn’t been addressed yet is the rudder. I had a weather helm problem in the Starratt 45 sloop I built for myself in the 90’s. I was able to fix this by extending the squared trailing edge about 4” into a nice point, and building the chord thicker, so that it was more like a symmetrical airplane wing. Your rudder is totally flat, with a squared edge - it is not hydrodymamically efficient. It is composed of two fiberglass halves and reassembled in the full mold (probably) with foam injected into it. With it’s shape being so rounded on the bottom, you are losing a lot of potential size. It would be very easy to unship this transom mounted rudder and increase the size, and decrease the turbulence at the trailing edge by building more of a knife point.

[JimJohnston]

I would also suggest taking a look at the rudder. Years ago my then Snipe dinghy wouldn't easily tack and I think had terrible lee helm. On one attempt at tacking I recall looking at the rudder to see it bending, a lot! Then it broke off at the waterline. A new rudder was built and installed and helming became normal again.

Maybe your rudder is bending out of shape thus resisting attempts to tack.

[Icarus]

On one of my previous yacht a 46ft Lidgard i experienced neutral helm with a touch of lee helm at winds below 8kn.
Eventually i moved the mast aft by 100mm which introdused a light weather helm.
When I built the yacht I added an aft skeg before the rudder and that was enough to influence the balance under sail.
It's mainly about center of effort of the lateral underwater body and the sail area, among other characteristics which change when the yacht heels.
Changing the weight distribution for and aft has an effect as well because the center of effort moves with it.

[Tarnacc]

Some folks have asked for pictures and believe it or not, I dont have much and none that I felt were helpful to the discussion. Kids pointing at dolphins not too helpful in this case. Having said that, I did some digging and here are some images.

To the moderators... My first time posting pictures here so if I am not using the right format or something, please let me know and I will do my best to correct.


This is after launching for the first time and we are moving to the slip. Rig is not fully up at this point but it is the best image I have showing a side view with the mast in place and on the water. Note that as stated earlier in the thread I have added weight to the stern and done some moving about so that she sits on what I hope is the waterline. This picture is taken well before that happened.




These two images are the best I can do to help illustrate what it looks like below the waterline.

[Tarnacc]

Originally Posted by Dr.No

Hello Tarnacc,
I can’t help at all with any design issues, but I did a major part of the building of the last six Voyagers. Voyager Marine was a wonderful Mom and Pop operation, that ended in 1983. It was literally Bill Randall, his wife Mary, and their son Gary doing meticulous hand layup of the hulls and decks in a small shop. These were then released to a contracted crew of two guys. A partner and I built the rest of the last six boats, except for the lead, engine install, and some of the wiring, which Bill did. We were installing a sweet little BMW diesel, and using quality parts and materials throughout. A few of these vessels have crossed the Atlantic. Please contact me if I can help with any building information. Cheers!

That is awesome! You are the first person I have made contact with who has any first hand knowledge of these boats. I would be very interested to know if you can confirm for me my suspicion that this is a very early or perhaps prototype model. Things which I believe are different then other examples I have found...

1.) less headroom indicating MK1
2.) no hull number to be found anywhere
3.) engine was a Yanmar SVE8
4.) round bronze opening ports
5.) galley on starboard
6.) no dolphin striker (I think that was only a MKII thing)

[sanibel sailor]

Picture to me looks like trim is “close enough”

[tanngrisnir]

Photos very helpful. Comparing the side on view with the sailboatdata picture it looks like you are floating on your waterline OK, and also as you have said, the mast is vertical. Look at the sailboat data picture and it is ranked 3 degrees back.



I will try and do a couple more diagrams for you to see how your lead changes with rake and also what it is without the Yankee.



Sweet looking boat though.

[Kastaway]

I don’t know about sticks and rags but that rudder looks like it would leak a bunch of pressure through the prop clearance area. I’m not sure that it would deflect much flow (water mass) at your hull speed and rudder angle. Then again if it behaves under power ok (cutting the power partway through a turn to reduce the effect of the prop accelerating the flow) then maybe you can add rudders to the rags and sticks list that I don’t understand.
Yep - I can see the next post now ........ “add rudders to the list dummy”

[Kastaway]

I don’t know about sticks and rags but that rudder looks like it would leak a bunch of pressure through the prop clearance area. I’m not sure that it would deflect much flow (water mass) at your hull speed and rudder angle. Then again if it behaves under power ok (cutting the power partway through a turn to reduce the effect of the prop accelerating the flow) then maybe you can add rudders to the rags and sticks list that I don’t understand.
Yep - I can see the next post now ........ “add rudders to the list dummy”

[Tarnacc]

Originally Posted by tanngrisnir

Photos very helpful. Comparing the side on view with the sailboatdata picture it looks like you are floating on your waterline OK, and also as you have said, the mast is vertical. Look at the sailboat data picture and it is ranked 3 degrees back.



I will try and do a couple more diagrams for you to see how your lead changes with rake and also what it is without the Yankee.



Sweet looking boat though.

Thanks for the comments. Couple of things to consider...

Kind of difficult to see in this picture due to the shadows but she is sitting pretty high in the stern here. This is one reason you can see so much of the prop aperture. This is not the waterline NOW. Also, in this picture the rig is not fully up and the mast will eventually wind up at least a couple degrees back from where you see it in this picture.