When we go sailing, the boat may just push water out of the way (usually called displacement mode), ride on top of its own bow wave (planing) or foil. This week we look at how water resistance effects boatspeed, and what we can do to minimise this resistance.
In competitive sailing we are looking for every advantage we may get if we want to win and going fast is a pretty important advantage to have - the gains from using the correct sails are more than just marginal!.
Not too long ago in a lot of classes crews could be seen visibly relaxing as the kite went up, and the procession began. Happily now in all racing we understand how to make gains and use the downwind to our advantage.
There are a lot of theories of why we need sail twist. They are mainly disputable, but the fact is that boats go better with twist. That’s all we need to know to understand the importance of this factor of sail trim. For us its simple to prove - when the tell tales are flying, and most importantly at the head the leech tell tales,
The mysteries of sails are often best unravelled by thinking of them as simple and logical tools. We can go into details of flow, turbulence and aspect ratio, but it doesn’t really make the boat that we are trying to tune any faster. This blog is about understanding the goals of tuning masts and sails, and hopefully will give you some ideas on how to go faster.
An important skill in downwind sailing is prioritizing weather to sail the boat flat or healed to windward by the lee referred to as kiting, Sailing by the lee means that the air is flowing into the sail from the leech towards the mast as opposed to normal sailing when the air is flowing from the mast towards the leech of the sail
Any national team will benefit if the federation takes an active role in supporting development sailors. The jump from development to senior is always large and a trial for the sailors, so that to be in the system with a continuity of coaching methods and systems is a big advantage for the younger sailor.
We have all read copious amounts of wisdom about sailing being a matter of coaxing the boat through various conditions, listening to what she wants to do and then using some kind of gentle psychic powers to magically steam ahead of all the opposition and win. This blog is about the brutal truth. Understanding... Continue Reading →
The spinnaker is a sail which many misunderstand, and few master. In this blog we show that it isn’t a black magic sail and you don’t need a doctorate to appreciate what it can do. The blog is written at what seems like a basic level. All we can say is that speed is basic, whether its advanced or beginning - the same rules apply.
In order to sail the beat as quickly as we can we need to keep the best average VMG that we can. In this blog we will discuss the influence of shifts on our VMG and the use of a compass to improve our tactical decision making
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