There are few problems that detract more from the pleasure of sailing than a bad case of weather helm, a surprisingly common affliction.
The good news is that the problem is usually fixable.
The bad news is that the cause is often a combination of things and many of them are not intuitively obvious.
Here are ten tips to fix weather helm.
But before we start, there are a couple of things we need to clarify.
Hidden Weather Helm
First, if you have a modern boat, you may have weather helm without even realizing it, since with a balanced spade rudder you won’t feel much load on the helm even if the boat is wildly out of balance.
To test for weather helm, first mark the king spoke on the wheel—spoke that is vertical when the rudder is centred—then put the boat on the wind in a fresh breeze and see how much the king spoke is off vertical.
On most boats about a quarter of a turn of weather helm, or 4° of rudder, is optimal—gives you a bit of feel and the boat a bit of bite to windward, without being excessive. Anything more than half a turn is too much and needs fixing. (I base this on our own Morgan’s Cloud where the wheel takes three full revolutions stop to stop.)
Wipe-Out Syndrome
Second, some hull forms, mostly modern ones with wide sterns, get badly out of balance as they heel because the shape of the water plane changes radically. Some of these boats will actually over power the rudder and even self-tack when hit by a hard puff of wind forward of the beam. In these cases, while these tips may help, they won’t fix the underlying problem.
Most Boats Can Be Fixed
Having said that, back in the day when I was making sails and tuning boats, many owners that I worked with blamed the boat and designer for weather helm, but in fact I found that most boats’ weather helm could be fixed with changes to the rig (with the exception of the situation I mention above).
So, let’s do it:
Check weight distribution. Shifting weight forward may be relevant & helpful. If so, this might be an additional reason to get more chain & a heavier anchor.
Hi Nick,
Great point. You see a lot of cruising boats that are badly down by the stern. Having said that, I would rather see that corrected by moving weight out of the stern rather than increasing it in the bow, which, if done to excess can be quite dangerous.
This sounds backwards to me. I believe you want to move the hull’s center of lateral resistance aft and the sail’s center of effort forward. This means reducing chain in the anchor locker, not adding more.
Hi Greg,
Hum…thinks…noodles on piece of paper…yup, I thing your right. Thanks for the correction.
Hmm??
Shifting weight forward tilts the mast forward. This moves the top of the mast forward – this moves the center of sail forward. More pressure on the bow & less on the stern. Which reduces weather helm.
And shifting weight forward brings the stern up, the bow down deeper – center of lateral resistance moves forward a little. Less pressure on the stern = more weather helm.
I’m guessing that the first is stronger than the second.
A when bunch of years ago I had a Morgan 32 – the Ted Brewer design. When I first got it there was simply more weather helm than there should be. The previous owner had set up the anchoring system with 100 feet of chain and a bunch of nylon rode. Since my sailing was on San Francisco Bay, I was not concerned about the line rubbing on rocks or coral. I decided to remove 80′ of the chain. The resulting reduction of weather helm was not subtle. Another benefit was a reduction of hobby horsing while going upwind in the waves.
Nick,
shifting weight forward moves the center of lateral resistance farther forward, which in turn will make the stern lighter and have the bow pushed to windward. I don’t think that the “induced mast rake” would add any significatnt effect in the waves.
We raced for the first five years of cruiser ownership on other people’s boats. The first two years was spent in learning how to win. The last three were occupied with learning why we didn’t. Racing is very instructive for cruisers, and we cruise as if we were racing, or that’s the aspiration. Sorting out weather helm is part of that.
Hi John,
This is a very good list and I think that you put it in a good order. A few thoughts on some of these:
Many people view mast rake incorrectly in my opinion. Since we use gravity as our reference axis instead of a reference on the boat, it is highly dependent on fore and aft trim. Therefore, I believe it is critical to fix trim issues first and then look at rake. Changing trim will affect weather helm as well. In our case, we had to move quite a bit of weight around before we got our trim to be acceptable. To add to your comment on looks, boats with multiple masts have to have increasing rake in each mast as you go aft or they look wrong.
Your point about jib size is completely right. Our current boat has hank-on sails and the best part of it is that we never sail with a reefed jib. Someday we will get old enough to switch to a roller furler but the difference in sailing qualities of using the right size jib is enormous. The most used sail for us is actually just under a 100% which produces a faster and better ride upwind in anything over 10 knots over our 150%.
Halyard stretch is the one for us that we have not fixed yet and I find it kind of embarrassing to look at the luff of the main in certain conditions. I finally decided earlier this season that I am going to open the checkbook this winter and get better halyards.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Very good point on trim’s affect on rake. (Nick too). I should have put that in.
Eric, we did this last year and saved money by buying a reel of Dyneema core 1/2″ line, about 410 feet, or four halyards with some left over. We are very happy with the results, although we don’t feel the need to go with Dyneema very many other places where a little stretch is desirable.
Shop around and if you don’t care about colour, you can find deals when you buy a lot. You could even split a reel with a fellow sailor.
Hi All,
I added to #5 that it’s important to make sure that the boat is floating to her marks fore and aft before checking rake. Thanks to Eric and Nick for pointing this out.
Hi John,
Really nice summary on the main factors involved in excess weather-helm on cruising yachts. Perhaps swap point 5,6&7 around though? Experimenting with adjustable mast-bend #7 is usually easier on the water than adjusting rake #5, or increasing mast pre-bend #6. Changing rake may also adversely affect other things like heaving-to and pointing. Then if adjustable mast bend #7 (with back-stay, baby inner fore-stay and kicker) is making a difference, you can increase mast pre-bend #6 to often multiply the effect of #7. One thing to remember with point #7 and #6 is you may need to ease the mast bend when reefing, especially with in-mast and in-boom systems, so the sails furl flat without creases. Slab reefed fully battened mains may also stow / reef easier with mast bend temporarily eased.
Having experimented successfully ourselves, first with an older staysail (as a jib) and then fitting a new purpose built jib, we would vote to promote point #9. The change was as much about the move from an outboard sheeted 120% genoa, to an inboard sheeted 100% jib. In not having to sail lower to have the genoa luff filling properly with the attendant heel that gave, the mainsail can be trimmed better and becomes more of a complimentary foil that creates lift and power, and less an independent sail that needed earlier reefing or the leech opened up high to avoid closing the slot to leeward and stalling both sails. From this change alone, we are able to sail 5-10 degrees closer to the wind, and also sail about 5-10 degrees more upright, which assists your point #3.
In lighter conditions, the jib performs as well as our old genoa in 10 knots of true wind or above (but our VMG is better), and below 8-10 knots we now use a code 0 going to windward deployed on a furler. We are almost as close winded in these conditions as with the old genoa, but about 2 knots faster than before – remarkably better! Overall our sail plan (3 sails) is much simpler and easier to handle, particularly through a tack. Think of it as a cheat’s cutter rig! We have a 120% genoa and cruising asymmetric kite for sale!
cheers,
Rob
Hi Rob,
Lot’s of good points, thank you. A couple of things: I think it’s better to get the rake right before setting pre-bend, otherwise one tends to go in circles, although having said that, the two variables affect each other, so some iteration is usually required to get things really right. Also, although we have quite a bit of bend (about 1 mast diameter) I can’t see why that would adversely affect slab reefing, it certainly never has for us.
And finally, I have not found that changing rake has a negative affect on pointing or heaving-to. In my experience getting rake and therefore rig balance right is a total win, with no downsides.
Hi John,
WRT slab reefing and pre-bend, we chartered a 13m sloop that had a fully battened main but no cars (only track slides), and the main was a devil to hoist and even harder to drop, or reef in a breeze. Only towards the end of the holiday did I realise the mast-bend was causing pressure on the slides (transferred from the battens?) and easing the back-stay straightened the mast and eased the slides, hence my comment.
cheers
Rob
For boats without a backstay, like my cat and all beach catamarans, headstay tension comes almost entirely from mainsheet tension. Thus, every time the mainsheet is released, the headstay sags and the jib gets full. On beach cats and cats with small jibs this is a minor issue, since the jib is small, but as the jib gets larger it is a problem. The solution? Play the traveler instead of the mainsheet, keeping the main tight. Fortunately, nearly all cats come with an efficient traveler system.
Keel revisions can help too, specifically if the trailing edge was big and rounded, instead of relatively thin and sharp. But this is the sort of thing you look at AFTER all of the sail and rig trim options are exhausted.
Hi Drew,
Good point. Same on 505s and E22, both of which I raced for some years.
My 45ft cutter has a Profurl furled genoa. I have too much mast rake but have never been able to figure out how/where to tighten the head stay. Any ideas?
Hi Steven,
I don’t know, since I have never had a Profurl furler, but I’m sure this must be covered in the manual. Worst case the adjustment may be two-blocked with no more throw left, in which case you will need to get a rigger to shorten the head stay and maybe the foils. A royal pain in the neck, but worth it to get the boat set up right. Sadly a roller furler that is cut to the wrong length is a surprisingly common problem.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, John. Im not sure what is meant by “two blocked with no more throw left” – but in any event I intend to get a rigger to look at it. Thanks fir this very handy article.
Hi Steven,
Two-blocked is an older term, I suspect from when boats needed the mechanical advantage of blocks to raise sails. When the blocks come together- two-blocked- the sail could be raised no further and therefore there was no more “throw left”. (The same could be said of any block and tackle system.) I find it a lovely evocative way to signify “no more movement available”.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Dick – thanks for the explanation – agree its a great way to describe the situation. I’m surprised it hasnt crept into common usage, as so many situations (in life, business, relationships, politics etc.) can be described as “two-blocked”! I might start using it! BTW, where is Alchemy based? Are you still in the Med?
Hi Steven,
Certainly works for politics these days…we might be on to something.
Hi Dick,
Thanks for the great clarification. I must remember to define these old fart terms!
Profurls (at least ours) have a turnbuckle at the bottom. With the sail off, tighten this with a long screwdriver to turn the body of the turnbuckle and a channel lock wrench to hold the jaws/terminal. A rag in the wrench keeps from marring the finish. I’m lucky in that my neighbours have a Mainship and the swim platform is a nice place to get at our bowsprit right at eye level.
Also, this reply has some relevance.
I used to enjoy the feel of a little weather helm on the tiller.
But with my traditional heavy long keeled ketch, I find it easy first to balance the sails, then to reset them slightly so she steers herself, indefinitely if wind direction & force don’t change. This requires that there be no weather or lee helm.
The rudder runs 6 feet under water. That is a lot of surface area there. If there is constant weather helm, the rudder offers a constant resistance to the water slipping by. The hull is not flowing through the water freely. The boat is in a state of self contradiction.
By balancing the sails, the rudder merely slips behind the keel, offering least resistance, a suspended appendage doing nothing.
To self-steer, the trade-off is that the self contradiction shifts to the sails. They must slightly self contradict to keep her course straight, or the mizzen must be set as a steering (not driving) sail, etc.
I feel that this shift from weather helm to a rudder that is freeflowing is the state of least contradiction on my ship.
This has been my state of mind for years. My boat is at minimal self contradiction. She is in a state of grace.
i love your esthetics Nick.
We are just feeling out the new Cape Horn vane and 115% Yankee on our J42. Optimizing vane performance requires nearly neutral helm. But John’s point about slight weather helm benefit pertains to VMG to windward on the wind. When in the groove the rudder is lifting to windward due to countering weather helm and VMG improves. Pleased the Cap was able to sail us from Marblehead to Sandwich close hauled with up to 1/8 turn of helm dialed in with the setting of the control lines.
Thanks for the kind words Bill.
I was talking about self steering with only the sails – no wind vane needed, no autopilot. This requires zero helm, either weather or lee. Any helm at all will cause the boat to change course til there is no more helm & she reaches equilibrium. I’ve used this method a lot, maybe 5 to 8 thousand NM. Joshua Slocum was my inspiration for this.
This is a different situation from yours & John’s. A little weather helm on the wheel will require that your wind vane have a little lee helm to counter it, to get equilibrium. This is a inner contradiction, and it can be removed by having no weather helm on the wheel. Makes it easier for the wind vane. If this contradiction is slight it is of no import.
John said that less than a quarter turn of the wheel from vertical (king spoke at 12 o’clock and rudder centered) is optimal for weather helm. What about a tiller? I won’t be surprised if keel shape and rudder configuration (keel-hung, skeg-hung, spade, etc.) are factors. Maybe it’s a matter of touch.
Hi Robert,
Good point on the need to define for tiller boats. If the rudder is not an aggressively balanced spade, then feel will tell you if there’s a weather helm problem in a big hurry. With a balanced spade feel may not be reliable, so in that case any more than about 5 degrees of tiller deflection from the centre line would be too much.
Hi Steven,
Yes, agree, two-blocked could be used to describe a wide variety of situations in modern life.
Nope, after 5 years in the Med we have been 5 years in Northern Europe. Hence, the writing about how to keep warm on a boat. N Europe has fabulous cruising grounds.
We are now in Dingle working our way N along the west coast of Ireland.
My best, Dick Stevenson, s/v Alchemy
Thanks Dick, I’m a few years behind you then. I’m still learning the Mediterranean, sailing out of Carloforte, Sardinia for the last few years. Not in a hurry (yet) to go anywhere.
Hi Steven, I can well understand sticking around Carloforte. It was my first stop in Italy and we almost never left because the eating was so fabulous. Dick
Dick
Feel free to come back any time that I’m there and we can go for a sail!
Regards
Steven
Hi John,
One other thought that appears not to have made your list but is a big factor on many boats: windage. People with large cockpit enclosures and solar arrays back aft can really hurt the balance of their boat. It can be alarming to sail to weather of a boat with a lot of stuff on it and try to estimate the amount of area that is in the sails versus in the boat and bolted on stuff and realize just how little sail area there is compared to everything else.
Eric
Hi Eric,
Now that’s a really good point. And a further thought is that I didn’t think of it because it simply wasn’t an issue when I was sailmaking and tuning boats back in the day.
please help me better understand the difference: ‘rake’ vs ‘bend’ …up til now i thought these terms were synonymous
with regard to reefing the main i firmly believe in doing this early as in when the thought to do this enters my mind that’s when i do it…sometimes this is before i ever set it in the first place so i simply start out reefed and have nearly always felt gratified with the results…cheers
richard in tampa bay where recent t.s. colin performed inconsistently…significant in some places and not in others even only a few miles apart
Hi Richard,
Draw a straight line from the top of the mast to the bottom and then measure the angle that line makes to the waterline with the boat trimmed to her marks, and that’s rake. Mast bend is the amount the mast is deflected out of column. Another way to say this is that rake is the amount that a plumb bob (or wrench) hung on a line suspended from the mast head is aft of the heal. So a mast could have a huge amount of bend, but no rake at all, if said plumb bob was touching the heal, even though the centre of the mast might be a foot ahead of the plumb line.
Of course, with a keel stepped mast using a plumb bob to the heal is impossible, and even with a deck stepped mast the boom tends to get in the way, so most riggers use measurements at the top surface of the boom, which is close enough.
Regarding the expression” two blocked” it has the same meaning as the very old nautical term “chock a block” signifying when two blocks were jammed against each other and could not be moved further. This developed into the current usage as meaning ” full up”. The shortened version of the phrase is ” chockers ” .
Thanks Clive – I’ve used that expression hundreds if times and had no idea of its origins! Thank you for explaining….makes perfect sense!
Hi John,
Good list and in my opinion the sequence is right to. I seem to miss one step, though.
A couple of years ago I bought a new mailsail, but this applies to the old mailsail. I used to tighten the cunningham hole as an additional step before reefing. This flattens the mainsail more than just tightening the halyard. As said, this applies more to older mailsails.
Another observation about tightening the headstay: I have roller reefing for my genoa, and tighten the headstay by tightening the backstay. Therefore, tightening the forestay can be done even without using spanners 🙂
Hi Erik,
Yes, good point, if you have a cunningham hole, by all means use it. I left it out in the interests of brevity and because the effect is the same as tightening the halyard. I’m not sure that there is any additional flattening effect. The cuninningham hole was invented so a racing mainsail could be cut to the same length as the distance between the black bands but still keep the ability to tighten and stretch the luff as the wind came up.
Having said that, about the time I was sailmaking, the cunningham evolved into the flattening reef with the addition of a cringle at the same hight on the leach. Said reef was used to flatten the main by removing the shelf foot that came into use at the same time.
And, yes, of course you can tighten the headstay by tightening the back stay. Although it is a good idea to keep in mind that so doing may increase rake and so defeat the purpose of reducing weather helm. Bottom line, rake, stay tension, and bend are all interrelated.
Hi John,
I partially agree with your article, but the part with lengthwise center of force i don’t think helps much.
How much do we actually move the center of force by altering the rake (mast top) lets say 50cm, given the headstay and the goosneck stay in roughly the same place. Not much i think (maby 15 cm?), compared to the forces the rudder creates ( Only on a boat not making way this will be a factor) . On the other hand, what i do think affects the weather helm is the heel. A boat heeling 25 degrees will move its center of “driving” force out to leeward and it will be like rowing with one oar. I have raced with gennaker on 2m sprite and 3rd reef in main and essentially slack, and still weather helm (and broaching to windward) and then the lengthwise center of force is nearly in front of the boat.
The point about hull shape is a definitely factor and more on light displacement boats. The trim points mentioned will be making forward force larger relative to sideways force, as will better sails, essentially reducing heel with same or better driving force. These are all good points. The problem grows however as the boat starts pushing the hull speed, then the trough midships gets deeper and the boat looses stability (no water where it is widest). This makes the boat heel even more. Another factor is, when heeling, the rudder also heels, so the force from the rudder in the horizontal plane is reduced and calls for larger angle.
Another point came to mind.
The sideways force from the rudder at a given AOA (angle of attack) increases exponentially with the speed of the boat. So as the wind increases until we reach hull speed, all the forces increase (asymmetric driving force, rudder force, resistance), but as we reach hull speed the boat speed stops increasing significantly, so does the rudder force, while the asymmetric drive force still increases. Reducing sail will serve several effects. Center of effort lower down reduces heel, but also means driving force nearer center on a heeled boat so reduces weather helm caused by asymmetric driving force double up.
In the gennaker situation mentioned above we need to get the boat up to speed by trimming the main, before we can let the gennaker fill again or we broach again instantly. This is to get flow over the rudder.
Hi Johan,
Hum, that’s not generally my experience. On any boat I have raced on, the first thing to do when the edge of control is reached is to rag the main, and after control is regained, the main is usually the last to be fully trimmed, although I do agree that a quick pump of the main at the right moment can help with getting flow attached to the rudder after a wipe out.
Be that as it may, this chapter is designed to help those with offshore cruising boat who will shorten sail early, not racers operating on the thin edge of control.
Hi Johan,
Good points about heal (see tip 3) and over driving the boat. On mast rake, as you can see, I did not make it number 1 as many would, but I can say based on considerable experience over 50 years of tuning boats of all kinds from 505 dinghies to offshore voyaging boats that changing rake, done right, can and does make a big difference to helm balance.
Just for laughs, I measured boat speed under power below hull speed and above, motoring into a 15 knot wind. No measurable difference. The question is, are the aerodynamics better with the windows open or closed? Is the area significant? I don’t know.
I know I like the dodger in the winter and when it’s raining.
Almost a deep dive, rather than a primer, given all the great comments on weather/Lee helm and sail/rig trim. Fun to read!
Possibly yet another point: trimming forward (weight) on a long-keeled (and rudder, for that matter) boat will change the center of lateral resistance aft, reducing the tendency toward weather helm, maybe more than some of the other changes.
Hi Stedem,
We had some debate on this earlier in the comments. I think that it’s the other way around. If the boat is trimmed down by the stern the centre of lateral resistance will move aft and reduce weather helm. Of course said trimming would increase rake (as Nick points out) so part of the trimming change would be offset, but if the rake was then adjusted to the new trim, I think the net effect would be less weather helm.
Hi John, BTW, did anyone comment on what a fabulous picture of Phyllis leads off this article? Cause it is. Dick
Very true. It’s “relaxed but focused”, the mien I associate with seaman(or woman)ship!
Hi Dick,
Thanks very much. I like the back light sun with the shutter dragged, key light flash off the camera look a lot. Of course having a subject you love helps a lot too.
John,
Thank you for a wonderful article.
I posted previously about weather helm issues with our Brewer 44 (I think giving some incentive for this post) in the sail handling chapter. Quick summary, we have bad weather helm and have been working to correct it. The boat is set up as a cutter.
I was out testing the boat and had about 18-20 knots of true wind, and just the genoa up, on a perfect beam reach. I was getting weather helm in this case.
My question, and hopefully a useful discussion for the other readers, is testing weather helm with only the jib, a useful test to check forestay tension and jib shape? Of course boats like to be balanced and have proper drive for the conditions, but could this be a proper start to begin to isolate one of the the likely several factors affecting (our and others’) weather helm?
Thanks in advance! Conor
Short answer: yes. I have a cutter and the few times a year I bypass the hydraulic steering and use the huge tiller, I try different sail combos to see if I have further tweaking to consider. Try jib alone, staysail alone, main alone, then main and staysail, then main, staysail and jib. Try close, then broad reach. If you have running backstays, use them. Bring the whole family and some notepads and try to pick a 12 knot day with the wind over the land. You’ll get a load of data points that will guide you. In my case, the tiller is part of the wind vane setup so we are very interested in making that mode of self-steering as “friction free” as possible, and weather (or lee) helm is a form of friction.
Hi Conor,
Hum, I’m not a big fan of sailing without the main therefore that would not be my approach. Also, weather helm is usually caused by a combination of factors, so I would first get the boat balanced properly under all plain sail (using the tips above) and only after I had that sorted worry about jib only.
One thing that does strike me is that if the wind was 18-20 knots true and you were on a beam reach the full genoa, particularly if it overlaps at all, would be too much sail in the foretriangle. A better rig for those conditions would be a reefed main and reefed genoa, or even reefed main and staysail. That change alone might get rid of the weather helm. It’s also important with a boat like the Brewer to check heal angle. Any more than about 20 degrees will give you weather helm no matter what you do with the rig.
good morning all. i am wondering if anybody can recommend a good tuner around chester n.s. i need to learn how to do this properly and will gladly pay for their expertise.
thanks in advance
shane
Hi Shane,
I think I would give Sandy Macmillan over at North Sails in Lunenburg a call.
I’m also half way through a series of chapters on tuning, but it’s turning out to be a hard subject so it may be a while before I get it right.
Hi Mal,
Yikes, sounds like the boat had other issues too if he had to go that far. My guess would be an old IOR boat? Many of them had undersized rudders and did not steer well due to rating induces hull shapes.
Hi Mal,
No wonder he had problems, that would have been a seriously small rudder for a boat that size, and given the age that would seem to confirm an IOR influence. That rule has a lot to answer for.
Hey, John. Probably a dumb question again, but isn’t moving the traveller further leeward also important? It is the first thing I do when the wind gets up (in low wind I keep it more or less in the middle of the boat to keep the boom as centered as possible). Or am I using the traveller all wrong?
Hi Michael,
Sure, that’s right. That said, when writing the above I assumed that people understood the basics of sail trim. This article is about what to do if none of that fixes the problem.
Actually sail trim to reduce weather helm would be a complete article taking into account mast bend, twist, luff tension, and vang sheeting.
Understood, John and I am looking forward to that article 😉