How Sailing Works
This is why you are able to steer the boat by trimming in or easing your sails or, as you will learn in the next chapter, by moving your crew weight. By doing so, you are consciously throwing the boat out of balance.
As your sailing skills improve, you will use the principle of bal- ance more and more to get the best performance out of your boat and execute more advanced maneuvers. For now, just understanding balance will help explain why certain things are happening on your boat.
WEATHER HELM
As sailors, we have all experienced weather helm—whether we knew that term or not. Weather helm occurs when sail- ing upwind in strong or puffy wind. The boat turns to wind- ward, even though the rudder may even be bending hard to windward to try to counteract the boat’s turning. Sailors experience weather helm because the force in the mainsail overpowers the jib (if the boat is sloop-rigged) and rudder by moving the Center of Effort backward in the boat and to leeward of the Center of Lateral Resistance, which causes the boat to lose balance.
Weather helm is easily recognized by the tiller being pulled hard to windward, often bending under the pressure, while trying to sail a straight line upwind. Weather helm slows a boat down considerably, largely because of the overuse of the rudder. The proper correction is to ease the mainsheet, hike harder to windward, flatten the mainsail’s shape with sail controls, or pull up the centerboard or daggerboard as needed (up to 25%).
LEE HELM Lee helm is the opposite of weather helm. A boat’s tendency to turn to leeward is caused by too little force in the mainsail combined with too much weight on the windward side, thus the Center of Effort has moved forward in the boat and to windward of the Center of Lateral Resistance. Most frequently this occurs when sailing in light wind conditions, or when sail- ing out of a puff or into the lee of an obstruction. The proper correction is first to flatten the boat by moving the crew’s weight leeward, move the tiller to leeward, adjust the mainsail so it is fuller and deeper and make sure the centerboard or daggerboard is all the way down.
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