I have to admit it; I was pretty surprised at the "weight" of the helm when I first grabbed the tiller.
I can only guess at the causes such as:
* it's a pretty big rudder !
* it' s stern hung which may be a factor
* the chord length of the rudder is long, which means it's got more surface area to present to the direction of flow. A short chord modern rudder would be more efficient, and have a much lighter feel
* my sails are in rather decent shape, and I still have a relatively "heavy feel" regardless of wind strength
* the feel is similar with the spinnaker up too, in terms of "weight"
However, the upside is that you are not going to want to fight a lot of (slow) weather helm, so you will be trimmed at least close to the correct groove. In this regard, I really don't mind. Call it self-instructive.
Also, I don't think you could get away with being an extremely ham fisted racing helmsman. You only need to move that helm a wee bit (fractions of an inch primarily) for best effect. This is true on any boat, and it's just easier to do on the J/30 because this is the range of easy movement. If you move the helm excessively, you get penalized with arm fatigue, so you learn to make small fluid movements, which translates nicely to your helming skills on this and other boats.
But I was surprised at first. It's not what you might think. I do think the J/30 has a sweet natural wide groove that makes it pretty easy to go fast. Except when there is zero wind, 5 foot waves and current, my typical Lake Michigan racing conditions.
Dell
