Practical Boat-Sailing: A Concise and Simple Treatise

by Douglas Frazar

To starboard the helm carries the head to port.

To port the helm carries the head to starboard. See diagrams, Figs. 1 and 2, page 37.

This is all reversed at a critical point in seamanship, which should be carefully remembered; and that is when a yacht has what is called a stern-board, i.e., has received some force which is making her go through the water stern first. This often happens when an attempt has been made to tack, and the execution of the manœuvre has seemed to fail: it is then for a moment or two that the yacht will often drift astern, keeping in the wind's eye, making it uncertain whether or not she will yet "go about." It is at this moment, whilst she is making this stern-board, that a knowledge of the helm will yet put her about by shifting the helm hard over to the opposite side from where it was when the attempt was made to go about. Remember not to move the helm till the yacht has commenced making stern-way, then this law applies:—

To starboard the helm carries the head to starboard.

To port the helm carries the head to port.

For instance, if it were desired to go about by bringing the helm over to the starboard side of the yacht, and the manœuvre should fail, after the yacht has come head to wind, and commenced to get stern-way, it might yet be consummated by shifting the helm, or tiller, over to port, which would have exactly the same effect as it formerly had when the yacht was advancing, and the helm hard a starboard.

A yacht should be perfectly enough balanced with sails and ballast to carry a nearly even helm when on the wind: but it is often the case that they carry what is called a lee-helm; that is to say, when the yacht is on a wind, the tiller is continually poked down to leeward, or the opposite side of the yacht from the wind, to keep her up to her course, from which a tendency to fall off is shown: this is usually caused by too much head-sail, and may be remedied by a shorter bowsprit, a smaller jib, or another cloth on the after-leach of the mainsail.

To carry a lee-helm is a "beastly thing," as an Englishman would say, and something that cannot long be endured by those who truly like yachting. If the yacht is free from the odious lee-helm, she may carry a weather-helm, which is not as bad as a lee-helm, but is troublesome. This causes the yacht to have a tendency to "luff up into the wind," and causes the tiller to be carried hard over on the weather-side of the yacht, and is usually occasioned by too much after-sail, or bad storage of ballast. Both these habits of carrying a lee, or weather-helm, are detrimental to speed, as in both positions the rudder is often held at nearly a right angle to the keel, decreasing the speed materially. A yacht that is well balanced in sails and ballast will, on a wind, habitually carry the tiller a point or two to windward of the line of the keel, and it will need but little movement in any direction to keep her on her course. Sometimes, in sudden squalls, a yacht that carries a weather-helm will luff up into the wind in spite of the helm, so as not to be stopped except by slacking off the main-sheet. The same may occur in yawing with a yacht that carries a lee-helm. The helm may be put hard down, and sometimes the jib-sheet will have to be eased off, before the yacht will come to the wind. A weather-helm is endurable, but a lee-helm never,—"Well, hardly ever."