Nice links, thanks. I respectfully disagree with the upwind/downwind speeds though. In my experience the most force on the sailboat/windsurfer (and resulting sp

Nice links, thanks. I respectfully disagree with the upwind/downwind speeds though. In my experience the most force on the sailboat/windsurfer (and resulting speed of the boat) comes from sailing at a broad reach, roughly 45% downwind. Linked from your USA_17 article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind They have a couple of vector diagrams here, which seem to indicate downwind as faster: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind#Vector_diagrams_and_formulas http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind#Ve... If so, you'd increase speed as you went downwind up to a certain point, and then it would decrease again as you near dead downwind.