i tri wrote:
I have also experienced poor turning under strong winds - usually reefing solves that problem, BUT you say you had reefed 50%, so the other thing to check is that the rudder is ACTUALLY all the way down, a few times when i thought i had my rudder down all the way a friend advised otherwise, you really need to pull HARD to ensure clamped down to vertical AND its best to be locking down when joystick for rudder is in the straight ahead position, which remember is actually about 45 degrees away from centreline of hull.
I suggest you practice with the AI on dry land so that you can see what i mean, as unless you have a very flexible neck there is little chance once at sea.
Good Luck!
I have been having trouble with rounding up in strong winds i tri and your post came to mind. I realised I was always getting turned to port, never starboard, but everything would seem OK when the wind dropped a bit. After looking at the rudder on dry land, I can see that what has been happening is the rudder pops back just a couple of inches, so it looks OK, but this greatly restricts its movement to starboard. I tried it out in strong winds (25 knots +) with the rudder cleated down hard and Eureka! - no more problem. Thanks