Windmill Class Association

Colin--one simple way to reduce weather helm (in addition to depowering the main and keeping the boat flat) is to move or tilt the board aft, moving the underwater center of gravity aft. It is conversely helpful to move or tilt the board forward in light airs. Allen

:: Ethan, the tuning that you helped me with worked very
:: well. The pointing improved by leaps and bounds. I
:: wanted to sail a few times to make sure that what I was
:: seeing was consistent.

:: From what I've observed in my last few times out I find
:: that I have a lot of windward helm and tend to get
:: sucked up into the wind but pointing isn't a problem any
:: more. This leads me to believe that I don't have enough
:: weight on the rail. With my crew and myself we weigh
:: about 260 lbs. so in 14+ winds we are very over powered.

:: I constantly have to let out on the main even with the
:: traveler all the way out, the bridal cranked down all
:: the way and the vang cranked on as hard as I dare. We
:: have done very well not capsizing but we have been
:: riding the chines hard and the pressure on the rudder is
:: big. I can see it as I look back and see the wake coming
:: from it and hear the noise. I've tried moving back and
:: forward with my positioning to see if it helps but
:: doesn't seem to. Back does however seem slightly better.

:: I re-measured according to the tuning instructions on a
:: 15+ windy day with storms approaching and with the 36"
:: dimension exact. We were still way over powered to the
:: max on a beat. The amazing thing though was when we let
:: out for a reach, this boat reached speeds that I never
:: would have imagined. I once owned a sailboard and I
:: don't think that even on the windiest days I got quite
:: this fast. My only regret was that someone wasn't
:: watching us. I'm guessing we hit between 15 and 20 KTS.
:: The winds that day reached 29.4 KTS and that happende
:: while we were racing. We were on living on the edge of
:: disaster. The charge that my daughter and I got from
:: sailing so fast will be had to match. Wow!!!

:: Unfortunately we were the only boat in the portsmouth
:: class at DIYC so I'll never know how we would have done
:: against the other boats in our class. I do know that
:: even though we had a shorter course then the other boats
:: we missed the white out rain conditions and had the boat
:: on the trailer before everyone else even finished.

:: Experiences like this is what I live for. I'm so glad I
:: got into my Windmill and I'm sure I will continue to
:: enjoy it until I've completely worn it out.

:: Check out this link, this is what I'm talking about.
::
:: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDToL593cmU