This corresponded to a hole in the midsection of the rudder blade.

The name Safran, literally meaning "rudder blade", was chosen from 4,250 suggestions.

Jeers swelled as she hacked at the rudder blade, sending chips flying, trying to cut a crescent around the embedded hook.

A No 4 smoothing plane is essential but an electric plane is very useful (but extremely loud) for making rudder blades and centre boards.

Unbalanced lateral forces on the rudder (when set amidships) arising from the propeller slipstream impinging on the rudder blade.

On their ships "the rudder is controlled by two lines, each attached to a crosspiece mounted on the rudder head perpendicular to the plane of the rudder blade."

Little was done with the Sailfish design in the ensuing six years except to upgrade the rudder blade's shape in 1972 to the more streamlined design also used on the Sunfish.

Designers such as Ian Oughtred have produced modern versions that incorporate many traditional features while addressing some of the drawbacks, in particular the replacement of the shallow, balanced rudder (which had a tendency to lead to wild and erratic steering in big following seas) with a more conventional transom-hung pivoting rudder blade.

Or in other words, a bulbous widening for 1/5 of the total length of the rudder blade, with a streamlined narrowing for 2/5 of the length leading to a flat section lasting for around 1/5 of a cord-length, finalizing in a blunt-ended flared trailing edge for the remaining fifth.