Wiki Sail by GRF

I've had an epiphany recently and understand how and why y'all are always wrong, and I'm right most of the time.

The problem stems from the fact that pretty much 90 percent of you have learned to sail whilst quite young, from your parents and in some cases from their parents, so, the 50's metal bath in front of a coal fire whilst the mirror dinghy is being built on the kitchen table mentality has been passed down, some might say inbred to y'all.

So, it's not your fault, don't need to feel guilty, you've been bred wrong in the first place, all thse things that go on, were forced upon you.

So, I try to be sensitive and not use big none sailing world terms, like common sense and logical, realising that it is totally wasted.

On the other hand, every now and then just pause and accept me as your saviour

And everything will be just fine between us.

OK?

Edited by iGRF - 25 Mar 13 at 10:25pm

GRF Wrong .... how un-WiKi Like ... I am feeling worried now

Tell us about your discovery of perpetual motion and revalations on buoyancy. That is usually good for a laugh. 

Edited by 2547 - 26 Mar 13 at 8:24am

Two sails have never been faster than one in my world simply because the riders are tandem one behind the other and because the lead rider stays forward, weight can't be shifted back far enough to completely release the board. Therefore the wetted area causes too much drag as I'm sure you are already aware.

There are also two kinds of fast we tend to talk about, fast across the water, drag strip fast speed in knots etc, then there's fast round a course. Boards obey exactly the same rules as dinghies but tend to have more efficient rigs in that being able to cant them to weather they support the rider weight more than a rig which tilts to leeward and spills wind. Foiling moths are now using this technique upwind.

So, it could technically be possible for two sails to be fast or as fast as one in a round the cans scenario, but to date I've not experienced it, which begs the question why do boats have jibs and why are boats with jibs faster than those without? Two Independent rigs on a saiboard have to have two masts and two booms so maybe that's why, but my theory is that it is because of the lowering of the aspect ratio of the rig that does it.

At displacement speeds it's been my experience that long chorded low aspect sails are faster than higher aspect short chorded rigs and the reverse is true in faster planing situations, the reason is couched in complex lift drag calculations that it would be boring and tedious to go into and you wouldn't understand anyway, it's just true, accept it. So a jib combines with the main to produce a very low aspect and extra long chord which works very efficiently in low winds to produce more power with little heeling moment.

Two windsurfing rigs never quite act in the same way, for a start they can't be fully sheeted in since they act to steer the craft and if you are front man on a Tandem and sheet right in the craft just goes into a continual bear away, and if you're the rear man it just head up, so the tendency has to be to balance the sails the one in front being small and the one on the back larger, and you can never quite get them balanced going to weather. I once raced a tandem round Hayling Island back in the day with another very good racing sailboarder, and with another guy we took one across the Channel, so we did spend a fair amount of time on tandems trying to make them work, but never could quite dial them.

So there, I hope you are all duly enlightened.

The twin ESPS's wouldn't work either, but the reason for that is an entire other marathon post.

Bupyancy - rule of thumb, one litre of buoyancy is required for one kilo of crew weight so if your crew weighs 160 kgs then just to support them your boat needs 160 litres volume, to go fast it needs that on top of the reserve buoyancy necessary to support the boat weight, so 100 kgs weight, + 160 kgs crew, 260 litres minimum.

Yet none of you even know what the volume displacement of your boat is now do you?

I'm not sure there is ANY windsurf board that would be anything other than a complete mutt in 5 knots of wind.  Even the big barges Graeme raced were/are horrid... Starboard have even added a 'batwing' to their latest race board.  It is designed to improve planing performance, in truth, it's just something to make the board look a bit different to give folks who use them on windless lakes near Nottingham something to actually talk about.... the sailing sucks that much.