But if OTOH you locked the helm, like you have to do on your own
boat?


Roger Long wrote:
Never tried it but it's had to imagine the Pearson 26 which I sailed a
lot would do it. I'm thinking back 20 years though.

If anyone knows of a spade rudder boat (except maybe for a long,
skinny, atypical, type) steering itself to windward, I'd be curious to
hear. Some skeg ahead of the rudder seems to help a lot.


I know of many... am pretty sure to have done it on a
Pearson 26, one of which I made a delivery trip many years ago.

All you need to do is get the helm set just enough to
weather that the boat will sail straight ahead when heeled a
bit, bear away when the wind slacks up or heads, and rounds
up slightly when heeled too far. I've done it on many fin
keelers including quite a few with no skeg. The best way
IMHO is to use a piece of very strong shock cord across the
cockpit & clove-hitched to the tiller, so that you can make
a fine adjustment by slipping the hitch a few twists to one
side or the other... and you can also grab the helm and
steer by hand if you have some urgent reason to do so quickly.

You're right that an underwater shape with more longitudinal
stability helps a lot. But it's not necessary to get the
boat to "sail itself" to windward or close reaching. On a
beam reach or off the wind, no dice!

Fresh Breezes- Doug King