Our mystery rudder issues were confirmed! When we left the harbor in Terciera, we had trouble turning to starboard. We thought it might be weird currents or something keeping the bow from turning to starboard. I thought it was epic weather helm since we were moving straight but had the helm hard over.

Later, the issue manifested itself as “not turning to port” when we were on the other tack. In my mind, this meant weather helm again.

I started wracking my brain to figure out how this could be, weather helm while only flying a staysail makes no sense!

I inspected the steering system and found that the quadrant key had slipped out and the quadrant was slipping around the rudder post.

We made quick work here to get that key in there again and suddenly steering was restored.

With good steering, we set the trysail and staysail in harmony and rocketed along the surface at 6-7 knots the rest of the day.