How a yacht works: sailboat physics and design(onemetre.net) |
How a yacht works: sailboat physics and design(onemetre.net) |
Racers are, as you might expect, fanatical about performance. They will go very deep into details about optimizing sail trim and shape, and using wildly-named specialized foresails (not merely spinnakers, but asymmetric spinnakers, reachers, screachers, code-zeroes, etc). It's a bit like talking to an SCCA racer about your new pickup truck.
In fact, if you have a good grounding in the basics of sail trim ("when in doubt, let it out"), and know how to put a reef in you can have a fine time getting between points A and B in a sloop with a basic mainsail and jib.
But what is not obvious to cruisers is that racing teaches you how to handle your boat in many different and difficult conditions, with confidence. When you race you have to go from a specific place to another specific place and you don’t get to pick the weather. You’re often pushing your boat and are in high stress situations.
Often, cruisers will go out, when it’s nice, and turn on the motor when they can’t make their boat go the way they want it to go.
So, what happens when you’re out sailing and an unexpected storm rolls in? Because if you sail enough, especially offshore, it 100% without a doubt will happen. I’d honestly be pretty comfortable handling the boat through all but the worst weather, boat breaking weather. And even that, I would be confident in my safety gear and ability to contact support for a rescue. Because all of that is drilled into you as a seasoned racer. And I’ve been through some bad weather on the race course. I’ve had to make my boat go upwind in horrible sea state for hours on end while my crew is throwing up from sea sickness.
There are multiple occasions on which I’ve turned down sailing with cruisers because I just don’t trust that they have the skills or equipment to keep me safe should things go sideways.
Sailboat racing is amazing; it’s this incredibly complex exercise involving physical boat handling skills, teamwork, leadership, communication (in a jargon that itself takes a year to internalize), as well as physics, geometry, meteorology, and minute observation of effects (that dark patch on the water or the flutter of a telltale). All of this feeds into strategic decisions on where to position your boat and tactical decisions of how to do so.
It looks crazy boring from the outside but if you get into it, it’s an activity that is intensely mental as well as physical and requires a very broad set of skills.
Close to other boats and rocks and other hazards it takes some practice. Pros can to sail into the harbor, luff up and grab the buoy without touching the engine.
Having no brakes really teaches you to plan ahead.
Only downside is their close haul is like 12º off the wind vs a bermuda rig and no one knows how to make them. The east coast (esp chesapeake) has some traditional gaff rig setups that have similar tradeoffs, like catboats. I would love to see more small production boats target this end of the "speed/comfort/cost" triangle. Currently it's like if the only bicycles available were race-ready track bikes. But sailing is already a small niche and new boats even smaller I think.
I'd argue the Bermuda rig is overwhelmingly the dominant choice for a number of good reasons. Yes, upwind performance is one of them, but it can also be a good choice from a simplicity and workload perspective.
Choose a boat without runners or checkstays, install an auto-tacking rail, and you too can tack just by turning the rudder. Various autoreefing systems (rolling jib/main) are likewise common these days.
Lots of spreadsheets and practical calculators too—bulb shape optimization, wetted surface area, simple VPP models. If you're into sail performance modeling or yacht design, this is one of the best resources out there.
I can just not look at the junk today, compared to 25 years ago when the information I wanted only existed in a physical library in a different country.
Vessel design goals not mentioned in other comments: cruising requires storage space, seaworthiness, living space, will generally prioritize stability/safety, may prioritize low draft for tropical anchorages, may prioritize single-handed sailing, etc. Autonomous vessels which may require visibility, minimum height, battery storage, stealth, etc. Multihull vessels are not discussed, even though they dominate in many categories because they are generally functionally superior in many regards (speed, comfort, safety, living/cargo space, low draft) but cost more to acquire/maintain. Once you study this stuff enough you realize there's a reason why ~nobody cruises on trimarans, people without extra money avoid catamarans, people with enough money prefer to cruise on catamarans, and large seagoing ferries, military and cargo vessels with speed as a design goal are also usually catamarans.
Fun fact: IIRC catamaran comes from kattumaram meaning "two stick tied together" in Tamil, the ancient Dravidian language of southern India. As such it is one of the few Tamil roots that entered international English vocabulary. South Indian seafaring empires once dominated sea trade as far east as Vietnam. Small multihull vessels are the hallmark of the Austronesian peoples, who are believed to have spread from Madagascar to Taiwan thence taken flight to populate the Pacific Ocean. Got breadfruit?
Did some digging and found a sailing school that I haven't asked about classes (yet) https://www.spinnaker-sailing.com
There's even a school that offers boatbuilding lessons in Sausalito -- a bit too far/much of a time commitment for me! https://www.spauldingcenter.org/current-offerings
As a fan of Hornblower series,I suspect most of the relevant details went over my head because I didn't understand this.
Warship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI
Explorer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYqXrFx6S8
They don't cover the actual physics and processes of sailing a tall ship, but they do explain all the parts and pieces and how they connect.
The tutorial level on how to get the ship pointed in the right direction and moving out of the harbour will give you the basics.
I plan to integrate the simulator with the sail trim guide I'm building to help people learn.
It's a WIP, but accessible at https://www.sailrhythm.com/
Happy to answer any questions!
I would love to volunteer on someone's race/sail boat to get some experience. I'm happy to take the ASA introductory course or ? course.
Any advice on how to move forward? I'm in the Seattle area.
Systems aboard a typical 35-50 foot sailboat produce interesting data streams, but the data don't seem to be used innovatively or interestingly.
This makes me wonder if the market is too small compared to the unicorn-level valuations most seem to aim/hope for.
Kind of putting this out there because I'm a liveaboard sailor looking out for startup ideas and it would be amazing if it were in the marine-tech space. So any feedback/suggestions would be more than welcome.
There is a lot of open source going on. There is OpenCPN chart plotter. There is also NMEA OneNet which uses Ethernet so should support things that radars, plus make wiring easier.
Perhaps still a big enough space for a bootstrapped indie business, for lack of VC scale.
NMEA is quite interesting, though. Coupled with Czone for digital switching and power readings, I bet there is some interesting insight waiting to be discovered, one that can be monetized.
Sailing isn’t what it used to be.
There are roughly two kinds of sailors: those who care about speed, and those who care about comfort. They have almost antipodal design requirements, but both kinds are very much sailors.
Classes make it easy feel like you’ve learned “levels” of sailing or to feel like you could rent a boat in the Caribbean. But, they hide a lot of what sailing is really about. Maintenance, rigging, de-rigging, showing up for no wind, learning the rules of sailing, etc, etc. They also miss out on one of the most amazing aspects of sailing: community. Learning from other sailors is key. You’ll borrow parts from (and lend to) other sailors. You’ll help organize races for them and they for you.
Sailing is a beautiful, beautiful lifelong endeavor that I wish everyone could be exposed to and pursue if they’d like to. Look up your local yacht club or Hobie / beach cat fleet or other sailing club and just ask if you can get a ride. Show up early, listen and do what you’re asked, be polite, stay until the boat is totally put away, and repeat. Try different boats with different clubs and people eventually.
Eventually, maybe take a class (RYA not ASA) to formalize your knowledge or fill in the gaps. You’ll clearly know what they are at that point. Eventually maybe buy your own boat, or do as many people do, just keep crewing. Truly good crew are really rare and boat owners will love and appreciate you.
I think you’ll love it.
If you’re in Charleston, SC, check out Charleston Ocean Racing Association (CORA).
Or if you’re somewhere else and interested, message me, and I’ll do my best to find a place and make an introduction. The sailing community is a small world.
Maybe I’ll see you out there!
Another good way to get started is to find crewing opportunities for casual racing on https://www.latitude38.com/crew-list-home/. Many skippers will take no-experience folks out for fun. (It may take a couple of attempts to find a skipper/crew you enjoy hanging out with)
You can also join the Berkeley Yacht Club (BYC) without a boat, it's not too expensive. There's a bar and social events, good way to meet sailors with boats in the marina and go sailing on a variety of them. They hold races in the bay pretty often, and are sometimes desperate for able bodied ballast.
The quality of instruction is very high, with a focus on safety and building a strong foundation of knowledge. Especially if you ever might want to charter in remote locations or sail across oceans, it's really an excellent foundation.
[1]https://www.clubnautique.net/school/introduction-to-sailing/
School is fine too but you’ll realize that you’re mainly just paying for access to the dinghy anyways. The instructor isn’t going to teach you anything that’s not in a book or that you won’t learn crewing someone else’s boat.
Hope you have fun though with whatever you decide
I did some river/lake sailing as a kid on the East Coast but now the urge is calling to me! I remember the "righting the boat" test being the scariest/most fun part of the experience -- super glad I went through that and feel confident on a small boat.
Now...I used to remember all the knots we learned but that memory is mostly gone
Take enough of a learn to sail class that you understand the basic theory —- I took one at my local yacht club.
Then, find a racing fleet! Racing boats need crew weight to help the boat sail towards the wind (so you can be useful while you are still learning), and not all the jobs require as much sailing knowledge as others (my first job was to pull the free end of the line while someone was winching in the sail).
Skippers value consistency —- the boat can’t race without a crew, so literally just reliably showing up is a valuable thing.
Also check out the Friday night races at Berkeley Yacht Club. Skippers always need crew so it's pretty easy to get a ride. Just hang out at the gate between 5 and 6pm with your gear and say hi!
Larry Ellison started at Cal Sailing and Lowell North was dinghy chair in its previous incarnation as a UC Berkeley club.
Goofy fun place.
Will help you figure out if you are into sailing or not.
There are a ton of opportunities at South Beach Marina
- Low-cost: If you volunteer at the Center for Wooden Boats (helping around the docks, helping with rentals, etc.), you get 1hr of boat rental for 3hr of volunteer, and you get free sailing lessons after 45hr of volunteering. Really friendly bunch! Great way to learn in smaller boats for free. Plus you pick up some skills while you're volunteering. Or you can buy lessons and become a member -- boat rental is relatively cheap here. There's also Sail Sand Point, which gets you out on lake washington on little lasers.
- If you want to get out on the sound, Seattle Sailing Club (SSC) has great instructors and friendly people. They offer most ASA courses (e.g. ASA101 over a weekend is a great introduction to sailing). This approach is more expensive, but good if your long-term goal is more "serious" sailing on the sound in bigger boats. You'll have more classroom time, a textbook, quiz, etc., and probably pick up more knowledge overall.
You can also look into Puget Sound Sailing Institute, which is a bit cheaper than SSC, but not as community oriented. More locations outside of Seattle though.
Buying a boat brings with it dreams of freedom, winning races, beautiful summer days.
The reality is that you need crew! Serious racers will refer to their boat as their “program”, and are always looking for careful, reliable crew.
I’d say look for a “learn to sail” program at whatever yacht club is nearest you, then see if they have a club racing scene. Most clubs have both.
This is how I started.
Small boats (dinghies) require crew weight in certain places (“hiking” as far out to windward as possible) and have less mechanical advantage in the boat systems.
Larger boats, the forces scale out of the human range quickly and the crew relies on winches and pulleys to move the sails.
The time I did sail on a junk rig though I was simply blown away by how easy and comfortable it was to sail it, esp singlehanded. Sure you can optimize a normal fractional rig sloop for that but it costs money and complexity. You can't beat the sailing ease of only needing one sail for everything and reefing from the cockpit.
The forces on the sail are completely different, you can use just nearly any fabric you can get a lot of cheaply, even fucking tyvek if you're ok with fugly. I was flabbergasted that the one I sailed on had done the mast refit, bought a sailrite & full canvas for right about the cost of a new main & jib. Ridiculous value.
They bear nothing in common with a typical monohull cruiser, or even racer-cruiser like a J-109[2]. Let alone compared to a comfortable cruiser like a Hallberg-Rassy[3]. These are all displacement hulls, whose speed is fundamentally limited to waterline-length.
There are monohull sailboats that can plane (most dinghys under 20' for example[4]), and there are large catamarans that can go much faster for their size than monohulls[5], but there are many tradeoffs in cost, dockage availability, and (somewhat subjectively) weather comfort.
[1] https://sailgp.com [2] https://jboats.com/j109/why-j1093 [3] https://www.hallberg-rassy.com/yachts/hallberg-rassy-370 [4] https://www.beneteau.com/en-us/first/first-14 [5] https://www.catamarans-fountaine-pajot.com/en/sailing-catama...