• examples of the physics of sailing.
• demonstrations of how lift works.
• an explanation of Bernoulli’s principle.

Student video about the science of sailing.
Covers friction, buoyancy, Bernoulli's Principle, Newton's Second Law, and  Newton's Third Law.

Uploaded on Oct 1, 2008
Northern California has a storied, 500-year history of sailing. But despite this rich heritage, scientists and boat designers continue to learn more each day about what makes a sail boat move. Contrary to what you might expect, the physics of sailing still present some mysteries to modern sailors.

Uploaded on Nov 18, 2011
How can a wind-powered sailboat move faster than the wind ? Why do the America's Cup sails look like airplane wings? With the beginner in mind, Exploratorium senior scientist Paul Doherty 

Published on Aug 5, 2012
How lift actually works with Canadian Olympian Hunter Lowden.
How does a sailboat work? The standard idea is that the wind pushes the sails from behind, causing the boat to move forward. Although this technique is used at times, it is not the most efficient way to sail a boat (and it means the boat can never go faster than the wind). Lift is the key mechanism driving a boat forwards. As air flows over the sails, it moves faster over the outer side, creating lower pressure than on the inner side. This produces a force which is mostly to the side and a bit forwards. Lift on the centerboard pushes to the opposite side, cancelling the sideways force and adding a forward component of force to the boat.

How drag, friction, buoyancy, kinetic energy, normal force, gravitational force, act on a sailboat. Vector addition is also discussed.

 This Points of Sail video is clearly unique in its multi-view approach to understanding wind direction and the sailing terminology associated with it. This lesson clearly illustrates not only the Point of Sail and the Mainsail position, it also includes the tack, the wind angle.

ORACLE TEAM USA racing in the 34th America's Cup on San Francisco Bay.

Published on Aug 7, 2013
The AC72 (Americas Cup 72 class) is a wing sail catamaran box rule, governing the construction and operation of the yachts to be used in the 2013 Louis Vuitton Cup selection series and the 2013 America's Cup. This new and revolutionary design is extremely expensive and has allowed the development of foils which lift the hull out of the water in some conditions leading to extreme boat speeds.

The tight box rule for the AC72 wing sail catamaran sets very narrow ranges for length, beam and wing sail dimensions, but the devil is in the details. The wing sail originally got the most attention in the media but focus has now shifted to the daggerboards and hydrofoiling.

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.

Contents  
1 History
2 Physics
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Sails as airfoils
2.3 Apparent wind
2.4 Effects of wind shear
3 Points of sail
3.1 Close Hauled or "Beating"
3.2 Reaching
3.3 Running
4 Basic sailing techniques
4.1 Trim
4.2 Tacking and Gybing
4.3 Reducing sail
4.4 Sail trimming
4.5 Hull trim
4.6 Heeling
5 Sailing hulls and hull shapes
6 Types of sails and layouts
6.1 Sailing by high altitude wind power
6.2 Rigid foils
6.3 Alternative wind-powered vessels
6.4 Kitesurfing and windsurfing
7 Sailing terminology
7.1 Rope and lines
7.2 Other terms
8 Knots and line handling
9 Rules and regulations
10 Licensing
11 Sailboat racing
12 Recreational sailing
13 Passagemaking
14 See also
15 Notes
16 Bibliography
17 Further reading
18 External links

Intro to Sailing is designed to teach the fundamentals of sailboat racing. Start with All Hands on Deck and then proceed to the Skipper's Course and the Web Cup Course.

Welcome to Sailing - A synopsis of the content
All hands on Deck - Information on sailing fundamentals
The Sailboat - The anatomy of a sailboat.
The Sails - The different types of sails, and their purpose.
Sailing Downwind - Techniques for sailing downwind
Sailing Upwind - Techniques for sailing upwind
Racing Courses - Synopsis of current sailboat racing courses
Boat Controls - Guide to using the game controls
Skipper's Course - the basic sailboat racing course
Web Cup Course - an advanced sailboat racing course
About the game - the story behind the creation of this game

BERNOULLI'S EQUATION, EULER'S EQUATION, HOW DOES LIFT SAILBOATS USE LIFT?, HYDRODYNAMIC FORCES, HOW DO SAILORS MAXIMIZE BOAT EFFICIENCY?

Article about how lift is applied to sailing.

Article from The Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/sailing/10335496/Americas-Cup-how-the-yachts-go-faster-than-the-wind.html

Sailing gives examples of physics: Newton's laws, vector subtraction, Archimedes' principle and others. This support page from Physclips asks

How can a boat sail upwind?
How can boats sail faster than the wind?
Why are eighteen foot skiffs always sailing upwind?
We introduce the physics of sailing to answer these and some other questions. But first:
A puzzle.

How can a wind-powered sailboat move faster than the wind? Why do the America's Cup sails look like airplane wings? With the beginner in mind, Exploratorium senior scientist Paul Doherty introduces the basic physics of sailing and sail design.

The Southern California Coastal Ocean Observing System (http://sccoos.org/) gathers live data about winds, waves, surface currents, temperature, and water quality, and makes it available to everyone. In this piece, Oceanographer Art Miller tells us about this system, and about how America's Cup sailors can use this kind of data and modeling to improve their race performances. To access wind modeling data, visit: http://www.sccoos.org/data/observations/

Lesson Plan: Students will be making and testing their own sailboats. They may choose to use the materials that the teacher supplies, or may supply their own. The class will also make a testing tank using simple materials.

This lesson enriches a study of turbulence, work, or power, and dramatically illustrates the energy efficiency gained by streamlining a hull moving through a fluid.

How do the America's Cup boats sail on just one hull? And why do they tip over when they do? Exploratorium Senior Scientist Paul Doherty dives deeper into the physics of the America's Cup catamarans in "Sailing 102: Tip Don't Flip!"

In this video from NASA, astronauts demonstrate the Bernoulli Principle on board the International Space Station. Using everyday objects like tissue boxes and a piece of paper, the astronauts show that when a liquid or gas flows more quickly, its pressure decreases. Also shown are some everyday on-Earth examples of the Bernoulli Principle in action.

The Glossary database contains 319 terms used in the various fields of sailboat technology.

Designing the Fin.

Article with diagrams on aerodynamics in sail shapes.

Article in which aerodynamics are explored. Diagrams included.  

Part 2 of article on sail aerodynamics.

Article with diagrams covering the complexities of airflow around sails. Includes links to 

Stanford Yacht Research (SYR) is currently doing a study in performance analysis on yacht sails through experimental and computational methods. This research is being done to study the flow around sails in a wind tunnel and to validate computer results against experimental results.

Article about lift.

Article: One way of trying to understand the amount of downwash produced by a lifting surface is called the "momentum" theory of lift.  In this theory, the lift produced by a wing (fin, rudder, sail) is equal to the downward "push" it gives to the air that it passes through.  By deflecting the air downwards, the wing is lifted upwards.  

The aerodynamicist's way of trying to understand the lift produced by a lifting surface is called the "circulation theory of lift".  This article considers a "simple" lifting surface of infinite length.

Physics of Sailing Wiki created by students

This wiki contains basic information about physics of sailing and sailing as a sport. The site is created by using Bryon D. Anderson's article on sailing and physics and visual parts are taken from Sabanc? University Sailing Club, Susail's practice documents for sailors.

This resource is part of the STEMbite Videos folder.

This folder contains STEMbite videos on Physics. You can see all Physics videos here: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNNCUNuTXfdEIeuE-uGoP19-Z7zET07XJ

From STEMbite: Nature is so amazing… No, seriously, it is crazy! To understand just how incredible our world is, you need to pull back the curtain and see all the science and math that underpins every part of our day-to-day lives.

With STEMbite, you can explore the world like like never before - through the eyes of an enthusiastic young teacher. Subscribe to this channel for engaging, bite-size lessons from a unique first-person perspective through Google Glass.

Three-time America’s Cup winner Grant Simmer is the America’s Cup champion team Oracle Team USA as COO. His role gives him day-to-day operational responsibility for the American team.

In this video, Grant answers questions about sailing and sailboat design.