Lee-Bow..... Windsurfers...etc (Dons tin hat)

It wasn’t just the pointing higher. He was tracking higher too. A perceptible climbing sideways if you like. Like when you see people going sideways to leeward in an unhelpful tide (in fact like the people around him in a low mode).

If you're going to make a gain by pointing your boat in a different direction to others (by tacking, gybing, footing or pinching), then something has to change. Wind direction, wind speed, tidal flow or direction. These changes can be temporal, or spatial. But, something has to change to for a gain to be made by sailing a different heading to your competitors. 

Originally posted by Oatsandbeans This is interesting. At one end we have the die hard “lee bow” fraternity that from their “gut feeling “ and experience says that this is real, and the other camp that have worked out the vectors and other such maths and conclude that it all is b***ocks. What if they are both right (sort of!) I admit I am in the latter group, but I ask why do the other lot swear that it is real? So maybe they are seeing something a putting it down to the LBE. So 2 boats are beating into a strong tide on the same tack. It will take a long time as they are hardly making any ground. If one is able to outpoint the other it will appear to make a lot of ground to windward as the leg is so slow. Think of it magnifying the effects of the small differences in height (pointing)that the two boats have. So by the end of the leg the boat that has pointed higher will have a good advantage over the other boat and he could easily put that down to the old LBE, and his ability to squeeze that last 5deg to lee how the tide. What do you think?

Found this old picture to illustrate.



This was taken at Hayling Island in 1979 the windsurfer in the foreground is out pointing the windsurfers in the back ground, the tide was running right to left most of the rest of the fleet are simply sailing into it. Back then we'd never heard of the term 'lee bow' but we thought of the foil under the board being 'tacked'if you like contrary to the flow.(Like the gybing centreboards we came across much later). Over sheeting to extreme there in fact, to achieve the disired angle to increase the pressure and as you continue parallel to the others the windsurfer would come closer to the camera, moving more upwind than the others. Pointing higher, sailing faster it's called, but the tidal flow if there is any helps, something that comes naturally as it probably did for Gareths Number One son.

Edited by iGRF - 16 Sep 19 at 8:36pm

Personally I'd like to see the so called hard evidence that something I not only experience every week of my life, but have used to devastating race winning effect on numerous occasions too many to even contemplate, is wrong. I bet it comes from lead mining where the rules are totally different.