Devotti Single Hander

no its half a meter smaller :) specially made for the Devoti-one

"Front loading" is a bit of a misnomer in this case. Its not like a longboard with a track where you're hanging down off the boom and putting a lot of weight down through the mastfoot, and the mastfoot position has a big effect on how a long (or short)board peforms and feels because of the balance of forces. Having the rig that far forward doesn't have a big effect on trim at all. The mast will weigh, say 8kg which in the context of the entire system of say 180kg sailing weight is small. For constant rake the f/a posn of the rig has a negligible effect on nosediving. Rake is far more pertinent. (the reason why kites keep the bow up is due to the "rake" of the luff meaning that a component of the force vector is pulling upwards). No boats nosedive upwind, it might just take a bit of water over the bow but that'll just wash straight out of the back.

If the whole affair (inc sailor) was moved back for aesthetic reasons, the bow would be out of the water losing waterline length and increasing wetted surface both of which are bad in the 5kt ish condition that this will go upwind in, although fine for the "planing downwind stuff." You could shift the volume back to mitigate this but that would result in a non optimal lcb position and hydrostatics which would be really sticky.

I'm sure the D-one is fine downwind because of the really full bow and the kite. I'm guessing that the bow is as full as it is because the wings are shorter than ideal so that they fit in a car boot.

The weight equalisation should work ok to get equal righting moments, esp if there are correctors to keep the sailing displacements equivalent. No doubt that its still a big guys boat though, as befits something that Luca designed initially around hs own requirements. 11m2 is getting towards the limit of what can reasonably be handled by one person. the finn-inspired rig is efficient upwind despite the low aspect ratio, when there is a large amount of sail area for the given righting moment, as there always will be on a s/h hiking boat.

I must admit I'd though about a stepped type hull a la Kona or Exocet Warp X 380 for something which has 2 modal speeds upwind and down. Poss more elegant would be an IC type stern which runs clean despite being immersed at low speeds (double ended), but still behaves ideally like a transom at higher speeds. Hard to reconcile on a shorter boat where you'd be taking a lot of volume out of the stern.