Notice:
The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ.
The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.
This months issue of Pysics Today (www.physicstoday.org) has a basic article on the physics of sailing. I thought the partitioning of the various resistance forces quite interesting.
That was fun, as with most things, that which is controlling is fairly straightforward and that which is more subtle and less significant is nuanced with a diminishing return. Adhering to the basic ideas will get the best boat speed and the slight improvements available by fixating on the more subtle issues is far outweighed by the skill or lack there of of the helmsman. ... and all of this assumes a well found boat, well tuned rig, and an attentive skilled skipper. And then there is the question of brain power, I am relatively skilled on the helm but always do poorly in racing because I am just too damn dumb to make the right choices. That is the beauty of One Design sailing, the smart guy wins... and gets his choice of beer when he gets back first! All I ever get is Milwaukee's Best from the bottom of a melted cooler!
Good article. The author points out that "...frictional resistance contributes about a third of the total..." amount of resistance that affects the boat. That means there's a huge amount of room for improvement in the boat's performance if you can reduce the amount of frictional resistance (drag) created by your boat. The amount of time and effort that you spend fairing the keel, sanding the bottom, painting it with good racing paint, and scrubbing the bottom before each race has a direct relationship to boat speed and pointing ability. When you're in your driveway and under the boat, with your skin turning blue from the sanding dust, there'll be a big pay off on the race course. You don't have to be all that smart if your boat is faster than the others. Just point it in the right direction and let it do it's thing. It'll gradually overtake and pass everything on the race course. I don't mean to minimize the importance of a brilliant skipper, but Dennis Connor proved that the most brilliant skipper can't always ovecome the disadvantage of a slow boat. Given a choice between a fast boat and a smart skipper, I'll take a fast boat every time.
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Given a choice between a fast boat and a smart skipper, I'll take a fast boat every time.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></font id="quote"></blockquote id="quote">
When I win a race it is always due to the brilliance of the skipper and the adroitness of the crew. When i loose it's because the other guy had a faster boat.
Notice: The advice given on this site is based upon individual or quoted experience, yours may differ. The Officers, Staff and members of this site only provide information based upon the concept that anyone utilizing this information does so at their own risk and holds harmless all contributors to this site.