Scott,
Your newest rig looks better in my eyes. I notice that you have drawn in a very short halyard drift, as seen on some western lugs. I suggest you make the mast 40-60cm taller. This both reduces the wrenching forces as the sail is squared out, and also gives you freedom to shift the whole sail forward or aft, to get steering balance perfect. This special ability of the JR saved me on my present boat, Ingeborg: I had underestimated the need for lead, but by later shifting the sail forward of the initially designed position, the steering became good.
On a fin-keel boat with a big rudder on the stern, it is hard to get it wrong. The rudder, sitting far away from the turning axis, and in un-disturbed water, can handle most balance issues. I have had three boats with similar keel-rudder configuration. With the sail’s CE placed at, or just a bit aft of the leading edge of the fin keel/cb, the boat will most probably balance nicely when close-hauled. As one bears away onto a reach or run, or if the boat is heeled well over, weather helm will increase, and there will be more and more need for a rudder to stay on course.
A long-keeled boat is much trickier to get the lead right on, for two reasons:
· The actual centre of pressure, CP, sits quite far forward of the geometrical CLR, so the lead should be closer to 14-17% (not counting the rudder into the CLR).
· The rudder itself is often sitting at the trailing edge of the long keel, where the water flow has been slowed down a lot, so the rudder is much less efficient than a freestanding rudder of the same area.
One more thing: A boat with a free-standing rudder and no skeg in front of it, is likely to be directionally unstable. No big deal - my last boat, Frøken Sørensen was like that. I solved it by adding a simple tiller lock/brake on it. This freed both hands to let me handle the sheets or whatever, and still stay roughly on the course.
Good luck!
Arne