Times have changed. Long gone are the triangular courses, Windward-Leeward courses dominate. The thinking behind the change was that the reaching leg was mostly a parade with little strategy. Now days the courses are mostly W-L with a very short off set mark leg that gets the racers away from the windward mark when setting spinnakers. That leg is maybe a 100 feet or so.
Last night, greatest experience
- Thread starter SteveHughessails
- Start date
I would push my O'Day 25 as often as I could. I love heeling. The O'Day's rigging is on the lighter side and only has a shoal keel. It was hard to get past 25 degrees of heel. The only gear we ever broke was a lower pintle from fighting weather helm in 5-6ft waves and 40kts of wind. We didn't even realize it happened until the rudder felt funny the next time we went out
My experience with my ODay 25 matched. When that fat rear end starts to immerse, the stern is lifted, and the rudder loses its grip on the water. Starts out with severe weather helm, then rounds up into the wind regardless. Really needs a deeper rudder to be able to hold course, but the rudder is already an inch or two below the keel with the center board up.
Pretty dry boat under most "almost knock-down" weather. Our mini-poodle used to love to put his face to windward up on the forward cockpit coaming. His ear flaps would lift and start to fly as the apparent wind picked up.
Fred W
Stuart Mariner 19 #4133 Sweet P - with a nice deep Ruddercraft kick-up rudder that gets rid of both weather helm and shallow water issues.
Pretty dry boat under most "almost knock-down" weather. Our mini-poodle used to love to put his face to windward up on the forward cockpit coaming. His ear flaps would lift and start to fly as the apparent wind picked up.
Fred W
Stuart Mariner 19 #4133 Sweet P - with a nice deep Ruddercraft kick-up rudder that gets rid of both weather helm and shallow water issues.