Physics of Sailing - How Sails Work - Center of Effort and Lateral Resistance - Helm Balance

This one of a weekly series of Winter education programs aimed at assisting people get items checked off on keelboat ratings sheets during the winter, with a social component. There will be an instruction/discussion period followed by a social period that may include a movie. Even if you do not need the subject being taught, feel free to sign up and join in.

Prerequisites: None. Those who have taken Intro to Keelboat Sailing should bring their rating sheets so that things can be checked off. Those who have not taken that lesson are welcome to attend. This will be somewhat of a social gathering as well, feel free to attend even if you have no particular interest in the topic being offered (but please do not disrupt the instruction portion. We will be following it with videos or a movie.)

Location: Check the Today in the Union website or the digital signs in Memorial Union on the day of the lesson. It will show up as Keelboat Winter Education. If looking on the website, you may have to search for "Keelboat Winter Education" because the page can have too many items. If you need help with the web page, I prepared a guide: How to Search for Events on the Today in the Union Web Page

Preparation Materials:

• Forces on Sails (Wikipedia)      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forces_on_sails

  The Physics of Sailing by Ryan M. Wilson            http://grizzly.colorado.edu/~rmw/files/papers/PhysicsofSailing.pdf

  The Physics of Sailing by Bryon D. Anderson in Physics Today
              (webpage) https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/61/2/38/413188/The-physics-of-sailingSails-and-keels-like
              (pdf) https://gewa.gsfc.nasa.gov/clubs/sailing/RESOURCES/Physics_of_sailing.pdf      

  An Explanation of Sail Flow Analysis – Stanford Yacht Research            http://syr.stanford.edu/SAILFLOW.HTM

  How a Sail Works: Basic Aerodynamics           https://nomadicsailing.com/blog/how-a-sail-works-basic-aerodynamics/

Instruction period will be from 6:00 to 6:45 - 7:30 followed by a social period and perhaps sailing movies or videos.

It is intended that this be akin to post-lesson briefing during the summer. A social chance to share experiences and get to know your fellow sailors and wish for water that was not so cold and hard.. Please come even if you do not need a refresher on crew overboard. Talk about sailing, get things checked off on keelboat rating sheets..

Other materials of interest:

Sailing Links: https://addbalance.com/Sail/Sailing%20Links.pdf

Sailor's Guide to Weather: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BywZ-rLn0R8hanNQRGJXTkJmV2FLQldONU1KRmRsTVNic3d3

Here is an overview of the ratings process for Heavy Keelboats:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BywZ-rLn0R8hc2ZUUGtCY2dDTC15a3I2bG9FNFhwVnJGWFEw/view

Sailing Standards for ratings and progress forms can be found here:

https://www.hoofersailing.org/manuals

Plan for this series:

Here is a flyer for this education series.

Post-Lesson Resources:

Instructor Evaluation Form

Incident & Accident Reporting