O'Day 28 tack itself??

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Ben McAndrew

Hi. I recently rented an O'Day 20 with my dad after selling a slightly newer one which we owned for 16 years. The one we rented was a centerboard model, and it did something that was quite odd and potentially dangerous: In the heavy winds that were on Lake George that day which was sinilar to ocean conditions, the boat had such severe weather helm, THE BOAT LITERALLY AND UNCONTROLLABLY TACKED ITSELF. That's right. The boat uncontrollably TACKED ITSELF. My dad, who sailed around the world in the 70's and had done a great deal of sailing in his life, said that our O'Day 28, Telperion, had allot of weather helm, but he said that he had never seen Telperion, or any other boat do that before. We suspect that the probelem was because the keel drew allot more water than the rudder when the centerboard is down. This may not have happened to us with Telperion because we just had the shoal draft keel with no centerboard. SO: I WAS WONDERING IF ANYBODY ELSE HAS HAS HAD THIS PROBELEM WITH THE O'DAY 28.
 
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Don Evans

Way to Go Ben

Ben, you are to be congratulated for your interest, and desire for sailing. Also your Dad for sharing his love and knowledge with you. I hope my sons when they become teenagers, still have an interest to sail with their old Dad. Most boats are designed to sail towards the wind when over canvassed, this is because of opposing forces caused by wind on the sail and hull (centre of effort) vs the keel and boat underbody design (centre of lateral resistance). Because these opposing forces rarely line up over top of one another some sort of helm is created, weather or lee. With weatherhelm the tiller has to be fought (pulled to weather...thus weatherhelm) to steer the boat on its intended course. A little weatherhelm is good as the boat should round-up and stall in the wind if the rudder is let go. This is a safe feature. The difference between the 28 and the 20, in their keel vs centreboard design and their sailplan I would suspect cause a difference in helm response, especially in that near gale experience on Lake George. Take care. Don
 
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Ben McAndrew

oops

Hi. me again. The boat we rented that tacked itself was an O'Day 28 like the one we owned, and not an O'day 20. (I made a typo) -Ben
 
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