Page "Rudder" Paragraph 15

Paul Johnstone and Sean McGrail state that the Chinese invented the " median, vertical and axial " stern-mounted rudder, and that such a kind of rudder preceded the pintle-and-gudgeon rudder found in the West by roughly a millennium.

However, Mott points out that the Chinese rudder worked by a very different suspension system, and that it was not permanently attached to a sternpost, leaving little point in comparing two such different types of rudder.

The method of mounting steering gear from the stern was well known in Mediterranean navigation by the time the practice appeared in Chinese ships.