Cal 36 steering under power

We had our Cal 36 out of the slip for the first time today. Unplanned trip because we had to move to a marina across the bay. I've been working all winter in the slip to get ready for a move or a sail or just to get going after this boat has sat for a long time in the water. The motor ran rough at first and caused some angst but cleared up and ran great. My next concern was that the tiller became very stiff as we sped up and became very difficult to steer the faster we went until it wanted to pull the tiller to port and it was all I could do to prevent it. What can be going on? When we slowed to go into the marina it became easy again. Mike

The thrust from your prop is washing over the tiller, causing increased resistance to steering, and to make it worse for you, the prop “walks” in forward as well as in reverse, only for different reasons I think. If you’ve ever flown a plane you know that not only does the torque of the motor introduce some tendency to roll as you leave the ground, but the angle of attack through the air causes the plane to want to pull to the side as well, which you must compensate for. Your prop sticks into the water at an angle and pulls harder on one side than the other as well. Or did I just make all of this up - I’m getting pretty old and befuddled. Nah - I think that’s pretty close to factual. It’s pretty normal, in other words. Wilkie > On Apr 19, 2015, at 9:29 PM, mb… [at] hotmail.com [Cal_Boats] <Ca… [at] yahoogroups.com> wrote: > > > > We had our Cal 36 out of the slip for the first time today. Unplanned trip because we had to move to a marina across the bay. I've been working all winter in the slip to get ready for a move or a sail or just to get going after this boat has sat for a long time in the water. The motor ran rough at first and caused some angst but cleared up and ran great. My next concern was that the tiller became very stiff as we sped up and became very difficult to steer the faster we went until it wanted to pull the tiller to port and it was all I could do to prevent it. What can be going on? When we slowed to go into the marina it became easy again. > > Mike > > > >