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LAND sailing. I don't think you could do this on water.
by Devilboy 16y ago
LAND sailing. I don't think you could do this on water.
- pmjordan 16y agoApparently sailboats do this all the time. Who knew? I can only assume they somehow use tacking techniques to travel against the (relative) wind. Though it's not clear to me how they accelerate past the wind speed in the first place.
- Robin_Message 16y agoI've seen an explanation [1] that in water it depends on having two aerofoils — one in the air and one in the water (they should be called fluidfoils. I guess the one in the water, the keel, is acting as a hydrofoil.) At any rate, in theory, with two fluidfoils and fluids with any different velocities you can go at any velocity (i.e. in any direction, at any speed.) [1] http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the-wind-or-faster-than-the-wind/ http://terrytao.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/sailing-into-the-wi...
- snippyhollow 16y agoYes, check this out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropt%C3%A8re http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydropt%C3%A8re
- malvim 16y agoYeah, they really do. I was looking into this a couple months ago when a friend at work, who has a sailboat, told me that they could do that, and that they could sail with a headwind! Here's wikipedia's take on that: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind
- Devilboy 16y agoThat's not directly downwind. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind#Sailing_dead_downwind_faster_than_the_wind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind#Sa...
- Yaggo 16y ago> Apparently sailboats do this all the time. No, the article is about sailing dead downwind faster than wind. No regular sailboat can do that.
- r7000 16y agoThat would have been incredibly handy in the age of sail.
- andrewcooke 16y agowell, you might be able to if you had something like a paddle steamer, where the paddles are equivalent to the wheels in this thing.