4 ms·
Thank you for illustrating my favorite fact about sailing: that the fastest speed at which a sailboat can sail is actually upwind. I learned this from an aweso
by jjallen 12y ago
Thank you for illustrating my favorite fact about sailing: that the fastest speed at which a sailboat can sail is actually upwind.
I learned this from an awesome book, no doubt one that many on HN have heard of, Thinking Physics, by Lewis Carroll Epstein that is worth getting, especially if you have kids and they don't already know basic physics.
- theatgrex 12y agothe fastest point of sail is a beam reach or a broad reach (perpendicular to the wind) ...not upwind
- codeduck 12y agoThis depends entirely on the sail plan of the ship in question. An AC-72 might be fastest upwind, but a square-rigged ship definitely isn't.
- adrianpike 12y agoEven AC72s are fastest a ways off true because of how far forward it drags your apparent angle.
- Anderkent 12y agoAgainst water, or against wind? Sailing against the wind feels fastest, because your SoG adds to the relative wind; but sailing downwind is much faster. The more interesting part is that boats can actually sail faster than the wind that powers them! Depending on the surface, from 1.6 times the true wind speed in a catamaran on water, to 5 or more times the wind speed in an iceboat.