Skene's Elements of Yacht Design

While asking Tommy Chen how he designed the 41LN and 35LN his response included many heuristics.  Heuristics like a rudder should be 5% of a hull's underwater surface area.  He said he learned them from Skene's Elements of Yacht Design.  Tommy doesn't read English and it speaks volumes that he made his way through this technical book.  When I asked him how he did it, he said, and I'm paraphrasing here: "Numbers are numbers.  You don't need to read english to understand them." 

Dave Howell, Nellie D. 37VT63