Push the tiller the other way!!

I set out to discuss one of the fine points of steering downwind, and discovered that a terrific resource already exists. Steve Cockerill of Rooster Sailing (http://www.roostersailing.com) wrote piece titled "The 4th Dimension - Downwind Sailing". This article I'm writing only touches on one portion of Steve's report, so I encourage you to go read the whole article at the Rooster Sailing Website.

How many times do you find yourselves heading dead down wind and you begin to heel way over to the weather side of the boat? I know I've done it many times, often resulting in me and my crew going for a swim. When this happens your gut instinct is to head upwind pushing the tiller as hard away as possible and dive for the high side using your weight to try to balance the boat. Basically, you're afraid of jibing and will do anything possible to avoid having the boom crash over. From now on, don't follow your gut instinct.

Push (or pull) the tiller the other way!

Believe it or not, when you obey your gut and try to steer the boat upwind and avoid a jibe, you are actually using the rudder to create more heel and causing the low windward side of the boat to dig even deeper into the water. Thus, you're really making things worse for yourself and increasing the liklihood of getting your clothes really wet.

It's pretty scary, and much easier said than done, but what you really want to do is to steer even further downwind. By pulling the tiller towards you (if you're sitting on the windward side), what you are doing is using the rudder to lift the low side out of the water. You are essentially using the rudder to help flatten the boat. Now once you've overcome your fears and steered the boat further downwind, you'll notice a little less of a tendency for the boat to roll. Once you feel this, you can start to steer away from the jibe and head back on your proper course. Note that this is something that takes a long time to master (I still haven't mastered it), but once you get the hang of it you'll be passing boats left and right. There's some nice (very short) clips in the Rooster Sailing Article I've mentioned that shows some of what I've talked about.

http://www.roostersailing.com/articles/baitgl.mpg

http://www.roostersailing.com/articles/rlse.mpg

Now go and try this out the next time you're practicing in some decent wind. Just be sure to where your bathing suit!

I've you've searched through our sailing article database, you may have found the rooster sailing article on your own. If you haven't yet looked through the database, you'll find many resources such as this to help you improve your sailing!