Hi Waterbug, 1)The side load on the rudder is increased with "shared lift". The force to hold the boat straight or turn the boat is not increased. This is acheived by balancing the dynamic forces on the rudder. Most boats already do this today. Note the forward swept leading edge on the rudder. 2) There is no advantage or disadvantage to shared lift while close reaching. "Shared lift" is a design method to accomodate the large migration in sail center of effort asociated with adding a spinnaker to a high performance beach cat where the spinnaker is sailed primarily on a relative wind reach and the boat is aimed much lower than that relative to the absolute wind direction. The boat sails at roughly twice the speed of the wind tacking downwind. Bill Bill
