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.
The Art of Reaching
the technical abilities to be fast on a reach and control your angle of sailing are still worth mastering as every small gain to be made is worth a while. It is incredible how many boats you can take on a reach if you are both fast and smart.
Foils
The sailing world is going foiling mad. Time alone will tell whether it's a good thing or not, but what we can say is that it's fun and fast, and very different in feeling. What is the same for the sailor is that we need to understand a far greater range of sail settings in order to optimise the performances of these boats.
Understanding Feel
The Centre of effort of a rig can be best described by stating that the entire force of wind power generated by a sail can be considered to act through one point - in the same way that the center of gravity of a body is the point around which that body balances. In this blog, we explain the dynamics of the Centre of effort, how you can change it and WHY it needs changing, which is because if the center of effort of the rig isn’t directly over the pivot point of the boat, you need corrective rudder which will slow the boat down through drag in the water.
Lift
Lift is the force keeping an airplane up in the air or in our case moving our boat forward. Generally lift is created when there is a pressure difference between two sides of an object, this difference in pressure can occur naturally or artificially generated like on the wing of an airplane.
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