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That would also throw me, it seems intuitive from our land based experience that the flag blows backward with moving things as they push through the air. Like f
by eloff 4y ago
That would also throw me, it seems intuitive from our land based experience that the flag blows backward with moving things as they push through the air. Like flags on cars. But sailing vessels are propelled by the wind, and usually move slower than the wind as well, so the flags would blow with the wind, forward. I'm sure sailors would not get confused about it, but for people who don't have that experience it seems counter-intuitive. Now if you had a sailing ship moving faster the wind, which is actually possible, I guess the flag would blow backward, well at an angle, because I think you have to be moving at an angle to the wind to go faster than it.
- amlozano 4y agoFor sailing maybe not, but a vehicle can in fact be made that can go downwind faster than the wind https://youtu.be/yCsgoLc_fzI https://youtu.be/yCsgoLc_fzI
- nroets 4y agoSailing downwind faster than the wind is possible. "Apparent wind sailing" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_sailing https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-performance_sailing Even more astonishingly are the remote controlled sail planes than not only exceed the speed of the wind, their performance is limited by the sound barrier. "Dynamic soaring" https://newatlas.com/aircraft/dynamic-soaring-speed-record-spencer-lisenby/ https://newatlas.com/aircraft/dynamic-soaring-speed-record-s...
- mcv 4y agoI think it's important to distinguish between downwind sailing and sailing before the wind, which is straight downwind, and cannot possibly go faster than the wind (you'd have a perpetuum mobile if you could do that). From what I understand, faster-than-the-wind downwind sailing involves tacking between broad reaches, where the wind still comes in at an angle.
- pmontra 4y agoModern sailing boats sail windward too, usually at an angle not greater than 45 degrees. Flags blow 45 degrees backward. Old ocean vessel didn't sail much against the wind. They were not built for that, hull and sails. America's Cup foiling boats sail faster than the real wind in any direction (even 3 times as much) so they always experience an apparent wind against them, same as a car or to a lesser degree a bicycle. However they don't have flags, I just checked on videos. They would blow backwards at a small angle, just as on cars.
- mcv 4y ago> America's Cup foiling boats sail faster than the real wind in any direction Against the wind maybe, but I don't see how that's possible sailing before the wind. They're probably never going completely before the wind but instead alternating between broad reaches[0]. [0] I had to look that one up. Sailing terms are one of those things I only know in Dutch, and the English terms are completely alien to me in a way almost nothing else is.
- pmontra 4y agoYou might want to check the diagrams and animations at https://sailing-blog.nauticed.org/americas-cup-apparent-wind/ https://sailing-blog.nauticed.org/americas-cup-apparent-wind...
- mcv 4y agoNice animations! They explain a lot. And this is exactly what I mean: they're going from broad reach to broad reach (and not even that broad a reach!) instead of going straight before the wind, because they need a sideward component to the wind force.