"under power" to me is burning gas with a running motor in gear. When under sail, that is wind power. Steve M-15 # 335 -----Original Message----- From: casioqv@usermail.com Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 11:42 AM To: Rusty Knorr ; For and about Montgomery Sailboats Subject: Re: M_Boats: M-15 balance By "under power" do you mean under motor power or sail power? Sailboats need weather helm to point well upwind, but what you're describing sounds like lee helm. If you're consistently getting lee helm with the sails trimmed properly, you may need to rake your mast rearward by adjusting the shrouds to fix it. Once you have proper weather helm, you can temporairly reduce it by sheeting out the main, in order to tie off the tiller and go forward for a short time. It's hard to leave the tiller long on an M15 even if you balance everything, because moving your body throws everything off, as it's a substantial fraction of the total boat mass. Sincerely, Tyler ----- Original Message ----- From: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> To: "For and about Montgomery Sailboats" <montgomery_boats@mailman.xmission.com> Sent: Thursday, July 25, 2019 11:20:40 AM Subject: M_Boats: M-15 balance I’m wondering about the rudder balance on my M-15. Under power when I let go of the tiller the boat immediately falls off with the helm going hard over and the boat spinning in circles. It makes singlehanding very difficult when you can’t let go of the tiller for even one second to raise or drop sail or grab something out of the cabin. I have a line for securing the tiller, but even centered the boat doesn’t want to hold a course and is always trying to fall off one direction or the other. Factory kickup rudder. Any thoughts or observations from M-15 owners? (And I have to say this every time...No 17’s please! They are completely different boats!) Rusty on Vanilla www.rustyknorr.weebly.com