Learning to Steer With Less Rudder

To fine tune your boat-handling technique you need to practice exercises that focus your attention on specific moves. The analogy of developing strength in a specific muscle group is an apt one.

I have a funky knee that requires regular attention to the small muscle groups around it to stabilize the kneecap. I used to do leg presses and bicycle riding to develop my hiking strength, but got very little relief for my knee. A physical therapist suggested a set of exercises that work the smaller muscles on the side of my knee; I began to do step-ups with particular attention to tracking my knee straight and I now do three different foot positions on my leg presses. These plus squats built the muscles and I have minimal knee pain.

Steering your Laser is like a big muscle group. You need to do lots of it to develop your unconscious coordination to wind angles, etc., but to reach the next level you need to breakout specific maneuvers and practice them until you can do that particular move without thought.

If you’ve read any books about dingy sailing you’ve heard that to learn to sail with the least amount of rudder drag you need to practice sailing without a rudder.

Great idea! I recommend it, but do it on a day when the water is warm because you’re probably going for a swim. And be sure there is no one around to run into and, by the way, good luck getting off the beach unless there’s an off-shore breeze. What I’m saying is that there is no easy way to sail a Laser without a rudder or pull the rudder underway and this exercise will surely teach you that.

I’d suggest a different approach that concedes that leaving the rudder in place is a necessity and that the goal of the sail-without-the-rudder exercise is to learn to restrain what you do with the rudder, not do without a rudder.

When the rudder turns, the flow of water is disrupted and the water pressure on the face of the rudder is unequal side to side. The unequal pressure forces the boat’s stern to slide sideways, pivoting the boat around the centerboard and nudging, or forcing, the bow to change directions. Water being disrupted is a sign of drag, and the drag of the rudder in the water causes the boat to turn.

Drag is slow. So, the trick is to learn to steer your Laser with the least possible drag from the rudder for the shortest amount of time. Keeping the rudder (tiller) centered in the boat produces the least amount of drag in most conditions. When you need to turn try barely moving the tiller the least possible distance off center, 3 to 5 degrees is a good goal to shoot for.

Now, let’s get back to rudder-free steering; only now you’re trying to achieve minimal-rudder steering. It’s an important difference because this goal leads you forward, and is achievable and helpful. If you steer with small, gentle movements of the tiller you are going to gain speed and distance over the length of a race, minimal-rudder steering will lead you to almost rudder free steering.

Your goal is to do all your steering with non-rudder adjustments, and to do that you can’t allow your hand and arm to float free; without realizing it you will unintentionally tweak the tiller to stay on course. Your eyes and hand are so nicely connected that just by looking where you want to go you will send hundreds of tiny corrections to the tiller. You need to “lock” your hand or arm in place so you don’t move the tiller. The locking helps to minimize tiller motions.

Locking means resting your hand or arm on something solid. The picture to the left shows a wrist resting on a leg and a centered tiller despite a strong enough breeze to be fully hiked out.

To get started, try bringing your Laser up to a close-hauled course and center the tiller (use the traveler cleat as a reference point marking the center of the tiller’s swing); now lock your arm against your leg or hand against the deck and see if you can tweak the boat up or down by easing or trimming the sail.

The next adjustment is to maintain the sail’s position and tweak your course using your weight to heel the Laser to leeward or windward. If you’re sitting in a chair reading this and wondering which way the boat will move for each of these maneuvers, I’ll tell you, but I’d suggest that the quickest learning will probably happen by just experiencing the effect. (Sail in or weight in will cause the boat to head up, sail out or weight out will cause the boat to bear off.)

A good goal for the first few times you try this is to just play with how sail trim and weight affect your course. Then you can try to use this heightened awareness to decrease the amount of rudder you use when you’re sailing around practicing other things. You need to work that particular move until you are minimizing the tiller motion unconsciously.

Notice the position of this tiller even though there is a fair breeze blowing. Do what it takes to minimize rudder action and particularly large amounts of rudder.

In the next installment, I’ll suggest the next step toward making minimal tiller the only way you sail, and I’ll let you in on a secret of the top sailors.