Sailing into the wind, or faster than the wind | Hacker News Reader

Sailing into the wind, or faster than the wind

terrytao.wordpress.com

39 pointssigna116 comments

The author does a good job of taking a complicated subject and explaining in such a way that it becomes extra extra complicated.

More simple explanation: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_faster_than_the_wind#Sa...

And probably you can sail downwind faster than the wind too: http://www.flixxy.com/sailing-yacht-research.htm

Not bad but the author just makes it way complicated and sailing has been sort of understood for a few thousand years.

Sails work not the way you learned in primary school, a broad sheet and some wind (normally a fan) behind it. Sailboats have a headsail and the mainsail. The headsail channels the wind into the mainsail and it generates lift, but at a 90° angle it becomes thrust to a sailboat.

Want to go faster? Deploy the spinnaker (the huge bubble-like canvas) and it lifts the front of the boat out of the water and reducing drag. You can continue jibing but most people stop here because to change direction you have to take down and reconfigure the spinnaker.

The technique for sailing into the wind, however, is much less than a thousand years old (unless it’s yet another trick that the Greeks learned and then everyone else forgot until the Middle Ages). IIRC one of the first sailors who knew the trick was executed for witchcraft when the authorities finally caught up with him.

I'm not a fan of the lateen rig, but it is very low-tech effective and has been dated as far back as 300BC. See:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lateen_sail

To gave momentum, you need to throw out something: air or water. If you need to drive into wind, you can only throw out air to one of sides by sail and compensate some energy by throwing some water to opposite side by fin.

Of course, you can use wind-powered generator and electric motor to drive into wind by throwing water. With wind-powered generator and plain sail you can drive to any direction.

(Sorry for my English).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com