[erps]

Good question Sway,

When we chose our current boat we were looking for a modified fin keel with a skeg hung rudder because that was a desireable trait by concensus opinion. Your observation that most collisions will be on the keel also makes sense but bouyant logs may have the ability to to bang the rudder on the bounce. My common sense tells me that a skeg hung rudder would seem to be sturdier just having that second reinforcing pivot point down low and that it would help take a lot of wear off the upper bearing surface. Our current boat sure is a lot less manueverable than our previous spade rudder boat through.