Posted by Magnus Smith on April 04, 2014 at 06:40:14 user Magnus.
In Reply to: Re: A SWALLOW'S TALE posted by Andy on April 04, 2014 at 01:06:47:
In case anyone else reading isn't a sailing nut, I'll just briefly explain that 'weather helm' is where a boat wants to steer itself round and point towards where the wind is coming from. To go in a straight line you have to pull on the rudder/tiller hard, and it can make your arm ache. (A light amount of weather helm is fine as it acts as a safety mechanism if you drop the tiller.)
In the 1930s most people sat comfortably inside their boats, and let the boat lean over if the wind blew harder. This will increase the amount of weather helm. These days most of us lean backwards off the edge of the boat (it's called 'hiking out') to counterbalance the wind and go faster without any extra weather helm.
Letting Swallow lean over would have made the weather helm problem worse, and taken all a child's strength to pull on the tiller and keep her on course.
After Ransome sold Swallow, the next owner added a jib, which balanced the centre-of-effort of the rig better and solved this problem a bit. He also moved the pigs of iron/lead you may recall being mentioned in Swallowdale.