"Charles Momsen" wrote:
It was tried here in 2006:

http://www.mediterraneanavenue.com/F...likeButter.pdf

Some benefits are mentioned.

Heck, there were America's Cup boats with forward rudders in the
1980s, and long before that. I remember a guy who raced Fireballs back
in the 1960s who built a Fireball with "turret daggerboards" which was
a set-up very similar to modern cassette rudders. The poblem he had
was the loading on a fast planing dinghy exceeded commonly available
home-brew materials back then. Too much deflection in any control
linkage he could build made it impossible to control it finely enough.

Plus the Fireball is a complex boat to sail, givng the skipper & crew
yet one more task to concentrate on was not an improvement.

As for controlling canoe-like hulls by balance, check out the St
Lawrence skiffs.

http://books.google.com/books?id=axf...esult#PPA58,M1

or
http://tinyurl.com/6dupkp

The "Rudder Like Butter" might be nice but is it really an improvement
on "No Rudder At All"?

Fresh Breezes- Doug King