Anybody have the Pardey books? I seem to recall that in the Cost Conscious Cruiser Larry made mention of a few tricks to tame weather helm. One was to balance the rudder by adding more area forward of the center of rotation and the other was to add weight to the rudder. The balance area I understand....the weight I didn't. Adjusting sail trim seems like a more obvious solution. Balancing the sail trim certainly makes the windvane operation better. My rudder is buoyant to the point were it will easily slide up and down the rudder pin. I see no need to add the complication of a block to gain leverage.....I would only use one to avoid chafe on the rudder so you didn't have to varnish/paint it from rope burn. What does make a difference is a straight rudder pin. Any bend at all in that pin and you have problems. I think the consequences of a grounding are a bent pin.....and later a damaged transom. I carry a spare pin and would recommend one for every boat. I'm sure Clarence would agree! Howard On 1/24/05 10:23 PM, "Craig F. Honshell" <chonshell@ia4u.net> wrote:

. . . here makes sense to me, Tod, thanks! So basically, adding enough weight to help the kickup blade stay down shouldn't add a substantial amount of weight to the transom, therefore, board dimensions and profile are going to be more important than weight . . . --Craig

----- Original Message ----- From: htmills@bright.net To: 'Craig F. Honshell' ; 'For and about Montgomery Sailboats' Sent: Monday, January 24, 2005 5:52 PM Subject: and just when y'all were . . .

Craig,

I can't imagine why weight by itself would affect performance of the rudder. That's more of a geometry problem.

Now extra weight CAN (or WILL) affect the overall performance of the boat simply because it means the boat displaces more so as it moves through the water it will affect the water (resistance) more, and I think the general wisdom is that it's better to keep weight out of the ends of the boat as much as possible for pitching, although I don't have a good understanding of why that would generally be true.

Sorry I can't be more help. Maybe Jerry or someone else will offer more.

Tod

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