1 rudder or 2 which is better?

[GWTW-000]

Th e boat I'm looking at has one 5' airfoil rudder. is there any benefit to this? How will it effect the handling and should I change the rudder system to To two 4' airfoil type?

 

[marshmaster pat]

During the early 80's there were a few of the single rudder boats running in SW Louisiana on riveted hulls. Several of the operators claimed they had better turning abilities. I cannot say, never got a chance to run one.

However, I do know that these disappeared fairly fast and got converted to dual rudders. The main problem they had was the single rudder stuck out from the back of the boat further than dual rudders did. So when they crossed short but steep levees in the marsh or small logs in swamp, as the boat's rear end dropped into the water the single rudder would hit the shore or the log. Several were supposedly bent up bad and people switched to dual rudders. Is this true, I don't know, just was told this was so.

I do know they stick out much further from the back of the boat.

The only person I know well that owned one, backed his into the back of his barn several times, just because he would forget to turn it sideways.
When the EMT cage started rusting, he switched to dual rudders, just because he would not have the rudders sticking out so far.

 

[Phil]

I had one. The bottom was cut at an angle to prevent it from hitting the shore. It was slower turring

 

[Anonymous]

A buddy of mine had a boat with 1 rutter and changed to 2 and said the boat had better response turning with 2 rutters than 1 and 2 weighed a lot less than the 1

 

[Sniper]

From what I know and I have been working on Aircraft for 27 years the air flow is much less near the center of the prop and the RPM is less to
so the single rudder set up does not get the Air flow over it like the dual rudder does,plus you have much more surface area of rudder to direct the air with the dual rudder set up and that why it is much more efficient.