Staying behind the wheel

[Tempest]

It almost sounds as if you could have hove-to for a few hours.

Agreed, you're going to get bounced around alot if you're going too slow or dead in the water. What kind of sail configuration did you have?

[Minnewaska]

How was sail trim? Might be harder to really know in the dark, especially with the confused seas. I find a lee helm of any kind to be particularly squirrely, but excessive weather helm can cause a lot of fighting too. Did you have the mizzen up?

[davidpm]

The P365 is a ketch rig.
Since is was night and we didn't know how high the winds were going to get the owner opted for safety over comfort. He also didn't want to close on the land until light so all we had up was about 6 feet of jib.

That being said earlier in the day we had all sails up.
Reefed jib, double reefed main and reefed mizzen.
During that run we were make 7 plus knots on a run with wind and waves on aft quarter.
The helm was not quite a bad as later when we turned and everything was beam on but it was still a work out too steer, but not as bad.

I'm now attributing the poor steering at night to the slow speed.

[Minnewaska]

Originally Posted by davidpm

He also didn't want to close on the land until light so all we had up was about 6 feet of jib...........

I'm now attributing the poor steering at night to the slow speed.

Very cool passage, by the way! Hope you're still out our way and enjoying it.

That single reefed jib would put some lee helm on you, especially with the main mast forward on a ketch. Thinking it was both that and the speed.

Cheers on the return trip.

[tdw]

Originally Posted by davidpm

(snip) I'm now attributing the poor steering at night to the slow speed.

Reckon you've nailed it David. I realise other traffic may have been an issue but if I didn't want to enter or even close on the harbour at night I'd rather heave-to or sail back and forth than slow a boat down too much.


Cheers

Andrew B