My brothers CII has a very heavy help and I found it ver heavy the other day in a f5.

Okay fair enough, stong winds where it's hard to keep the boat flat yes ther will be weather helm but this happens in light winds too

YES the boat is flat bus still seems to be heavy as iff its poped up a little but its right down as far as it goes.

Is the rudder just heavy or is something wrong?

Will do.
Prahaps I should have checked that already

I took it out today in about 5-6 Knots maybe

Wouldnt plane but definatley shifting.
No cunningham conditions and the helm did feel lighter.

I think it pop's up a little because I find the cleat doesnt hold very well.

On most boats I have sailed hetting the rudder downhaul out of the cleat is a nightmare but this one opos out quite happy.

At the time of the heavy helm it was a F5 running with big waves so no suprise but at times I hat to resort to the old school frying pan grip to rest my arms

also reading up on the class rules I see your now alowed two traveler carrs (did i spell that right).
Is that better that the solo carr?
If no how do I put a new one on?

I think i'm starting to like the CII now.....So much for the Europe

Looks likr my brother's lost his boat

Are there any other training events?

The Center board has a good snug fit.

Just a question why streachy rope and not non streach?
Would I use a layed rope or the usuall Excel pro or whater its called?

yes this is true for all dinghys with lifting rudders, I dont understand why laser stock a dyneema  or vectran rudder downhaul with the XD range!? I now use my old outhaul control line (which is stretchy!!!) and also stretchy lines hold in cleats better.  In the laser most tillers require this line to be tied rather than cleated, this makes the stretchy rope even more important because its even harder to keep it tight especially when launching into a big sea at stokes bay!

The 700 i bought also had low stretch rope for this and it wouldnt cleat despite the cleat being in good condition, this type of rope goes hard under tension so the cleat finds it hard to dig in, so it slips more.

As ever I stand corrected

Well you learn something useful everyday.

Thankeeee

By that logic, shouldn't we all be using stretchy main halyards? Or is the trick to use the stretchy stuff only on the 3:1 adjuster and non-stretch on the rest (majority)

with your halyard you dont pull it hard up against the top of the mast, it slipping down 2mm because of the cleat wont slow you down, with the rudder though you pull it down so it is resting tight against whatever is stopping it going down further...to keep it close you need to be able to pull the rope that 2mm further using the stretch so that when it cleats and falls back that 2mm it is held by the unstretched rope in the same place.  To make up for this with your halyard you should just pull it up slightly higher to allow for the slippage in the cleat.

Can you recomend a rope make/model/type?

Jim is right re: the sideforce keeping the dagger in position in the laser. It usually comes up when going in for a tack, or going in to adjust something, usually when slamming on a wave. Keep on buying those crappy pieces of rubber for a fiver.

Const leeward heel is important because it means that the rudder and dagger loading is (more) constant. Less experienced sailors will often, through lack of steering / sheeting / kinetics have their boats cyclicly heeling hard, then on top of them. This feeling of the boat "staggering around" upwind means that there is alternatively big weather and lee helm, both of which are slow, to reactively correct the situation. A really quick sailor will be using his/her weight and steering fairly aggresively upwind in breeze to keep the constant heel

The laser likes about 5 deg leeward heel upwind. This is beacuse it is a shallow and flat bottomed boat, limited in righting moment, so the small heel angle significantly shifts the centre of bouyancy to leeward, and thus increases the righting arm. This gain is enough to mitigate some of the negative effects of too much heel, such as weather helm. To a point...

Most sailors think they're flat when they're at 5 or 10 deg though.

The board is very tight in the white formula Bytes, not sure about the Ovi or Nautivala ones.  But there is no slop in my board so I've never really thought about it I just try to sail flat.  I've tried to achieve the windward heel techniques (as suggested by Mr. Rooster) when looking for height but not sure I've ever made it work!  Jon?

ps.  just got round to getting the latest Y&Y...nice rug!!

I have a friend with an Ovi Byte. The board it very very tight because of the hairy gasket they put round the top and bottom of the case. After judicious use of a stanley knife to shave it down a bit the boat is now sailable!