Skerry cutters
Square Meter Rule sailboats are a refinement of a class of Scandinavian
sailboats known as ‘Skjaergaards kryssere’, or Skerry cutters. They were
first developed in the Baltic sea in an area dotted with small islands
- ‘skjaer’ being the name for the rocks not big enough to be called islands
and the islands too big to be rocks. They had exceptionally tall rigs to
catch the wind over the tops of the skerries and long, refined hulls which
required only the faintest breeze to power the boat. The hulls were specifically
designed to conserve momentum as they passed behind a skerry. Once free
of the skerry, the boat had to tackle the often difficult conditions 
of
the Baltic - North Sea area. The demanding combination of conditions -
from heavy wind and rough seas in unprotected areas through gusty winds
when passing skerries to little wind and flat water in the protected fjords
- resulted in the graceful and deceptively fast Skerry cutters.
Overhangs and boatspeed
The overhang acts to increase the length of the waterline dramatically
as the boat heels in the wind. This is important because boatspeed is a
function of the length of the waterline, and small increases there quickly
give added knots.