It depends on what you mean by "work".

What boat are you talking about?

For control purposes, you are going to get the best performance sitting or kneeling closest to the middle. Even with some weight in the front that balances out the bow and Stern, you will have a large of repertoire of effective strokes, corrective or otherwise, if you are closest to the centre point (just behind the yoke).

If you're travelling solo and have the option of using a solo canoe, use the solo canoe. If it's not an option, or if you own a tandem and don't want to pay $ to rent a solo, then a tandem will work fine. Turn it around and sit in the front seat facing backwards so you're more centred. Weighing it down will help keep control in the wind as well. But I've always felt more comfortable paddling a solo canoe vs. a tandem when I'm by myself.

A weight is a weight: the boat will feel the same if you have a kid in the bow or an equivalent load, but the load doesn't paddle, so it will feel differently. Of course solo canoe will be more efficient than a tandem, especially paddling upwind. In a tandem you can use a waterproof bag filled with water if you want to put some extra weight in front of you.

I don't think that for most paddlers an asymmetrical hull design is going to give substantially more difficulty than the wind will unless you are paddling in a dead calm.  One can also adjust the hull design impact by sitting off-center so the canoe is somewhat 'tipped' over to one side - this alters the section of hull that is in contact with the water, removes most of the impact of a keel (if there is one) and makes the boat much more responsive because you've created a massive rocker.  Not something I'd do on a windy day, but on a calm day it would remove asymmetrical hull design from the equation.

Bottom line for most people, paddling a tandem canoe backwards while sitting in the front seat is the most elegant solution.

I had a Grumman ages ago with a thwart immediately behind the bow seat.  Took it out so I could turn around and paddle it solo.  Obviously some hulls will be more forgiving of that transgression than others.  If the thwart is immediately in back of the seat, you may find that the seat helps act as a thwart, particlularly if there is still a center thwart remaining, which is the case most of the time for a tandem.  That said, I swapped out the center thwart on my canvas canoe, the canoe sprung open a bit and I thought I'd never get the two sides close enough together to get the replacement thwart in there.  (It was hard to pull the canoe together with one hand, position the thwart with my other hand, and drive the screws with my other other hand.)