Strange lee/weather helm effect

I asked the Topper rep at the Boat Show in January what the main differences were between the Xenon and the Omega...he pointed out the alloy bar running across the Xenon and said something like "that's to stop it folding up like the Omega does when you put lots of rig tension on"....

This is going by purely what you have said above but if befor ehand you had very light and neutral steering it sounds as if you had the right settings initially, usually you would drop the shroud points for slightly heavier weather and at the same tyime what we ofund in the 200 was that you had heavier steering until you raised the centre board a bit which helps tremendously infact its the same in the 300 by lifting the board up a bit in the white stuff it eases the steering ive found. So give that a try. Could also be a problem with your sail shape perhaps the slot asweell or maybe your spreader lengths and angles are not the same which could possibly give this problem but you would probably see characteristics of this in the mast which you say is straight but it could be worth checking all the same. Did you move the mast heel position also or just drop the pins a bit. An inch sounds like quite a big difference i know that the difference between our light and heavy settings in the 200 are not as much as that but we also move the mast heel position which makes a difference.