In article ,
Rich Hampel wrote:

2. Stern hung rudders will 'ventilate' - sucking air down the sides of
the rudder - thus making them VERY inefficient and causing humongous
drag. Stern mounted pintel hung rudders are usually an unbalanced
design requiring huge loads to move them off center when the boat is a
'at speed'; plus, are very vulnerable to breakage if the boat slips
backwards such as when hove-to.

Slight disagreement. If the rudder's at all properly shaped, this won't
happen to a significant degree. I built our new one to NACA 0012 specs
and have surprised some people by shoving the tiller over hard at hull
speed, tracking only a boatlength away from our inbound track.

And when I heave to, we go slowly forward. The tiller tamer holds it
easily.

--
Jere Lull
Xan-a-Deux ('73 Tanzer 28 #4 out of Tolchester, MD)
Xan's Pages: http://members.dca.net/jerelull/X-Main.html
Our BVI FAQs (290+ pics) http://homepage.mac.com/jerelull/BVI/