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 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.
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.
When we go windsurfing, one of the most exhilarating manoeuvres we can pull is the carve gybe - a manoeuvre that even the most remote person on the planet can see is beautiful, skilled, poised and somehow effortless and magical to achieve. Timing is everything, strength is not needed for a perfect carve gybe
Anyone who has sailed against top sailors will know that many times you can be approaching half way up the first beat, and either in front of or in touch with some of the regatta favourites - often alongside them. A minute later the top sailor will have climbed on you, hit a gust of wind that you can’t reach, and gone from high mode to extremely fast forward compared to yourself, and from feeling great, being in touch or ahead of the good guys, you’re suddenly a hundred metres and forty boats behind them within around 90 seconds. This blog is about beginning to understand how they do that, so you can start to do it too!
There is a considered observation that we either have high mode or low mode sailors at the top of any fleet. Sailing high or low mode has individual advantages in different conditions, so we have to look carefully at what we mean by high or low mode. The purpose of this blog is to discuss sailing styles and blow some setup myths apart.
The evolution of skiffs and foils have generated the necessity for the evolution of the skills of pressure hunting.
The tuning of a boat involves gaining the optimum speed and height from a given rig on a given boat. If we change a hull, sail (main, jib, or kite) or mast we have to tune the sail to the mast and the rig to the boat, and often change our technique to optimise speed and height.
This blog is for the big people. The big people bring super athleticism to sailing - they bring strength, style, and often grace and athleticism. They bring a lot of charisma and friendship too. The dinghy sailing world will be poorer without them, and the Olympic circuit a lot less friendlier place without the big guys. Some of us may even need cranes to load the car on pack up day without the help of these athletes!
Many top sailors complain about either their downwind speed or state that they don’t know how to sail downwind. In reality this is usually based on an emotion and mental challenges rather than what an observer may see, but there is can be a hint of truth in such statement as they might be slow in certain conditions. In this article we look at the real deal with both top sailors and amateurs falling into the same errors quite often.
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