CANDChelp wrote:

I find it not at all surprising that Donal on a brief
encounter had difficulty adjusting.

Rediculous!
The 31 is a cruising boat with reasonable manners. If the sails were
trimmed
properly, the helm should have been fine.
Period.
Even in heavy gusts, Alien and Ghost required a light touch on the wheel
because I know how to trim.
Now let's hear how Donald "just took the helm" and it wasn't his fault the
boat
was trimmed badly!

Bwahahahahahahaha!!! Yeah...Bwahahaha!


No, not what I was saying. Moving from a powerful/big rudder to a
small rudder leads to differences in response, even where in both
cases the sails are trimmed appropriately. As example, in heavy
chop I still prefer to let Lady Kate sail herself to windward
because she does it better: even now I still tend to apply the
helm compensations I would have used on Flying Tadpole, and with
the small rudder they're not only pointless, they're increasing
the drag. The shift from one to another takes time and practice
to sort out. Not that one shouldn't be able to get onto a
strange boat and within a relatively short time get the feel of
her and sail 90%-95% OK, but if it's a strange boat you'll know
it's strange, and you'll know you're not achieving near 100%.
One has to learn them. So again, I'm not surprised at Donal's
comment.

--
Flying Tadpole


Taddy, is your rudder wooden? Because if so, you could just knock your head
against it rather than debating this.