Science of Sailing

Reported December 2007

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (Ivanhoe Newswire) -- If the cold winter months have you dreaming of sand, surf, and wind blowing through your hair, now may be the time to plan a sailing vacation.

“It’s an excuse to get out on the water, somehow there’s just this natural attraction we have for water,” Bryon Anderson, Ph.D., Nuclear Physicist at Kent State University, said.

A clear day and a breeze is all Dr. Anderson needs to do what he loves most -- sail.

But, Dr. Anderson isn’t just an avid sailor, he’s also a nuclear physicist, who knows how applying a few basic principles of science helps make sailing easier.

Many newbie sailors want to know how to sail faster. A common mistake is sailing straight down wind, but when the wind is directly behind the boat, it will never sail faster than the speed of the wind.

“The fastest direction to sail is with the wind coming from the side,” Dr. Anderson said.

With the wind coming from the side and the sails turned at about a 45-degree angle, the force from the wind stays constant -- no matter what the speed of the boat is. This is the fastest way to sail.

“Very light, very quick sailboats can actually sail up to two times faster than the wind speed with the wind coming from the side,” Dr. Anderson said.

But even fast sailboats have a top speed, called hull speed. As a boat moves, it generates patterns of waves that get longer in length until just one long wave is left along side of the boat. This long wave limits how fast the boat can travel.

“The boat is literally sailing uphill, and it gets very difficult to increase the speed,” Dr. Anderson said.

Sailing uphill may sound challenging, but having a better understanding of why it happens may help make your next sailing trip a breeze.

The American Association of Physics Teachers and the American Physical Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Bryon Anderson
Kent State University
(330) 672-2771
bdanders@kent.edu

James Riordon, Media Relations
American Physical Society
(301) 209-3238
http://www.aps.org
Riordon@aps.org

For more information on the physics of sports:

American Association of Physics Teachers
(301) 209-3311
http://www.aapt.org

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