I've heard of ships with shafts reserved for reverse only. I can see why this would be good, (faster stop, better acceleration in reverse,) but how do you keep the speed from exceeding the maximum of the ship in reverse?
The same way you do it in forward, change gears, using an ESC, bending props, using different props, all work in reverse to control speed. The real issue that has caused some trouble in the past is that it is hard to measure speed in reverse using the normal method with the 100' course, a lot of ships will sink themselves or can't back up straight enough to be able to do that. We (MWCI) tried using a speed trap that used lasers and a microcontroller or stopwatch to measure the speed over a shorter distance, 10', but people even had trouble driving through that so the bugs never got worked out of that system. The basic circuitry for a system like that is pretty easy, however the system as a whole does need to be refined a bit.
Right now reversing only motors are not legal in the MWC. I had them on Warspite and Washington. It helped Washington a little. It was a huge help on Warspite. It was for the best that they are gone.
