Rick

"the amount of helm required to counter the weather helm will also prevent leeway and the hulls work 

more efficiently.”  

maybe I’m missing something but seems balance would give better performance i.e. the CLR lift pushing directly against the CE keeping the hulls straight in the direction of travel 

Visualize an airplane, if your rudder elevators are set to low it will push your tail up and nose down to counter you would pull back on the wing ailerons to balance out, but you have increased drag, you are fighting the balance and losing some performance. A slight weather helm is desirable for safety, but best performance is a fully balanced helm. 

If the aft CLR is pushing the bow to weather wouldn’t that require you compensate in one of 3 ways

1. Over sheeting the fore main sail or under sheeting the aft, or both, to get more forward side force to counter the weather helm (more drag) 

2. Turn the fore rudder off a bit (less lift, more drag)

3. Lift the fore rudder (less drag) CLR moves back to CE and balance

Assuming 3 is optimal, you could set the rudder to L/Dmax AoA for the foil before lifting the front board to balance. That way you have max lift pushing directly on the CE? These balance points could be marked on the boards for each point of sail to make things simpler for quick trim adjustments. 

As I understand it the reasons for having a SLIGHT weather helm are for safety and rudder responsiveness/feel not performance, but again, I may be missing something.

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