Hi,
Yesterday we have been out sailing BD with the new
rudder set up.
Wind about 16 knts. After hoisting the sails
we pulled the sheet and the boat luffed.
Pulled the other sheet to get the right bow
pointing downwind and sheeted in again, the boat luffed.
After a few attempts I descided to take the jib
down, and we got her going.
Rudder angle was about 10 deg. so no high speeds.We
tried shunting and we had to get BD going really downwind to be able to build up
enough speed to keep her from luffing straight into the wind.
After some time we set the jib while sailing on a
close reach. Once the jib started pulling the boat luffed into the wind the
rudder only putting the brakes on.
We took the jib down and proceeded without it. The
front rudder has to be pulled up at least half way to keep the rudder angle
'down' to the 10 degres I mentioned. Front rudder all the way down
makes it hard to keep the boat from luffing into the wind.
We also tried the front rudder tilted out of the
water entirely which made made for very nervous steering behaviour.
Returning to the marina we were very
disapointed.
As we brought BD to the marina after the launch we
had to negotiate some bridges and a lock all less than
1 metre wider than the boat. I noticed that
steering was less precise compared to the old set up. Reaction is slower and
seems more abrupt, probably because the late reaction causes one to turn the
rudder further than usual.
Reactions please,
Regards,
Rudolf