Does your Goose have ⁰a tendency to veer downwind if you let go of the tiller? If so, your boat has “Lee Helm” as opposed to “neutral helm”, or “weather helm.”

As of 2020, fom my observation after having sailed a few of them, The Oz Goose’s design tends to give it a bit of Lee Helm.

I personally don’t like lee helm, and some sailors would call it downright dangerous, especially in strong winds.

Since most people (count me in there) would rather build the boat to plan, and modify it later, I have written this post as “How to modify a Goose, thats been built to plan. Its extremely easy.

The simple theory/objective is to move the center of effort (the sail) towards the back of the boat.

This picture above shows 2 Geese side by side. look at the masts. The Goose in the foreground, has its mast in the hole in the deck, as it was designed. Notice how far forward it is at the top, compared to the goose behind it, that has been modified.

Notice also, that the hole in the deck, extends aft of the mast, by about an inch and a half, or around 3.5cm. That is because we cut the deck, and extended the hole, from the original square, to a rectangle.

picture #2 of both boats

When we push the mast back, into where we cut the hole extension, the 2 masts line up. This will give either neutral or slight weather helm.

We fashioned a piece of wood, shaped something like a letter “T” to keep the mast in place. You can make multiple, narrower T shaped choks, and put them in front of, or behind the mast, to adjust mast rake.

It is very possible that different crew weights, and different number of crew, will change how much weather or lee helm the boat has. Don’t be afraid to experiment.