Physics of Sailing

www.recsports.ufl.edu/wauburg_sailing_chap4.aspx

A sailing boat is powered forward due to the reaction of moving winds against the sails. The energy is then helped by manipulating the wind action and the water speed. If there is very little difference with movement, such as on a calm day with the ocean and weather, the boat will do nothing but drift along. But if it suddenly changes, there is energy created and you can see this when the air beats against the sails and the boat goes against the water. Sails are airfoils and that work by harnessing the wind together to combine much energy and a type of wind called apparent wind, which is the velocity of the sail's wind. The sail then produces a lift using the air around it. This works in nearly all directions but if the boat is faced head to wind it will not move as the wind is too strong to let the boat travel against it. Other Strong built sail boats e.g. iceboats can benefit from these winds as they are designed in a special way. To get out of the head of wind, a sailor needs to tack around an angle bigger than 35°or greater than 80°, just outside of the wind sector. Tacking will give the sails an aerodynamic lift when sailing up wind but down wind, it is soon released.

nautarch.tamu.edu/shiplab/01George/index.htm

History

Sailing has been around for millions of years, usually known as a major source of transport between long or short distances. Sail boats were used from the simplest materials but the most used supply was wood and the plainest piece of cloth was used to catch the wind, which enabled the boat to travel across the water. The kind of ship used in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea had a sail called a lateen, which made it easy to handle but slow and too light. In the Atlantic, a square sail was used. This made the ship very fast but much harder to maneuver. These were the 2 main types of sail ships, until the age of Exploration was a turning point in the history of sailing & the world. The 2 ships were combined and the caravel was built, which made the ship fast & easy to sail. This ensured longer expeditions to new regions of the world, which were now being discovered by Explorers such as Vasco de Gama. Sailing was very hard back then and they didn't have modern instruments like nowadays and mainly relied on the sun & stars to guide them and their crew too. Sailors on board were usually prisoners presumably being sent to their death by falling over the edge of the world, as people thought the world was flat. Sailors suffered from horrible diseases, such as, scurvy, which is lack of vitamin C and typhoid, due to foul water. Also huge storms were bound to happen which could easily drown soldiers and destroy ships. In the end, many crews found new areas of the world and this proved that the developments of sailing really helped the development of the world.

An Introduction to Sailing

Hello, my name is Nadine and I'm doing my geography blog on Sailing as it has become a huge hobby of mine and I enjoy it. Sailing is the art of controlling a boat, with large fabric sails, which are called foils. A sailor needs to manage to sail against the force of the wind and master the sails, to change the direction and the speed. Also, a sailor needs to do rigging with ropes in the boat and the rudder, which acts as a perpeller. Many people can develop a very high skill in this by experiencing different sea and wind conditions and using unusual sailboats. Large sail boats used in industry and is rarely used for fishing or transport, except in countries such as Africa and Asia. Engines and motors are far more popular and even the most poorest of nations are able to afford them. Sailing is mainly a recreational activity and is mainly known as 'yachting'. There are many forms of yachting, the two main forms are cruising and racing. I mainly take part in cruising as I am not that involved in racing but I would very much like to be apart of it someday.