CANDChelp wrote:

Purely out of interest, why do you see strangeness in that
particular comment? (I will explain my interest, if you like).

Donal displays his incredible lack of sailing knowledge at every turn. With a
comment like his, it's easy to see why he bought into Beneteau ads.
He found the 31 tough to steer? What boat is tough to steer when trimmed
correctly. Answer: None, not even the 31 with it's cruising underbody.
Please explain YOUR interest.

RB
No, I didn't interpret Donal's statement that way at all, for
reason of my own sailing experience.

Most of the boats I've sailed have been dinghies, or dinghy
equivalents (which includes most trailer sailers, of course).
Almost all have deep and powerful rudders, the extreme actually
being FLying Tadpole the Light Schooner, where the swept area of
the rudder is about 2/3rds the area of the fully down dagger
board. As well as powerful, the rudder is way way aft and needs
every bit of its 5 foot tiller for control in gusts on a reach
when overcanvassed and mostly out of the water. Overall, the boat
is instantly responsive to her helm, a polo pony, which one sails
like a dinghy, always moving the helm slightly for optimising her
path through wind and wave, and slaughtering the competition.

From there one moves to Lady Kate, where to maintain the extreme
shoal draft, the rudder is as shallow as can be got away with,
endplate (wings) and all, and in the run of the boat, not
projecting well below like a spade rudder. Now, the actual helm
is not heavier, nor lighter, than Flying Tadpole, since the
leverage has been calculated to more-or-less match the presumed
helmsman effort. But the level and nature of the responsiveness
is totally different from the sharp reesponses of Flying
Tadpole.

For starters, the rudder is not powerful enough to run counter to
the sail set, whereas with flying Tadpole, one can get away
briefly with doing something violent at the helm without bringing
sails into play. For seconds, Lady Kate actually has to be moving
slightly for the rudder to bite, whereas FT can be accelerated
off with one rudder jiggle...but generally, one steers FLying
Tadpole like the big dinghy she is (in common with most of the
boats on this newsgroup). But applying the same helm techniques
to Lady Kate is counterproductive, all one ends up with is aching
shoulders. It took me a long time to adjust to the totally
different feel and approach needed because of the small rudder
factor. I find it not at all surprising that Donal on a brief
encounter had difficulty adjusting.

--
Flying Tadpole

-------------------------
Learn what lies below the waves of cyberspace!
http://www.internetopera.netfirms.com