CRUISING CLINIC

If your boat has a new rig and new sails, but a tiller that still tries to wrench your arms out of their sockets, what do you do? David Harding investigates

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HOW TO CURE A HEAVY HELM

A heavy helm can take the fun out of sailing. It makes life tiring and, more often than not on a modern yacht, it's a sign that something's wrong. If your yacht happens to be a 33-footer by Van de Stadt, you would expect her to be both nicely balanced and light on the helm - but that's not what Catherine and Alex Nancekievill found with their forerunner of the Marsdiep class. They bought Fosca Helena as a steel shell built in the early 1960s and spent seven years restoring her, during which time they had two children and even sold their house to continue the project. They finally started sailing, only to discover that she could be seriously hard-nosed.

THE DIAGNOSIS:

As Catherine explains, 'The problem is balancing the boat when the wind is on or abaft the beam. The helm becomes very heavy, and as she has a tiller this quickly becomes tiring. I worry that it could be a problem if we get caught out.'

With a young family, and an autopilot yet to be fitted, Catherine and Alex need to make life as easy as possible: having to play tug-of-war with the tiller is not helpful.

As part of the restoration, they fitted a new Z Spars mast, new standing rigging and a new mainsail and roller genoa from Dolphin Sails. They have also covered a few miles between them, and it became apparent from our early discussions that 'operator error' was unlikely to be a major factor in this case. So what could the problem be?

LOOKING FOR CLUES