Sailing Performance Survey

Most sailing is not done in order to achieve a maximum speed, but in order to go from one point to another. In most sailboat racing the objective is to sail a certain distance directly upwind (to a point called the upwind mark), and then to return downwind, as fast as possible. Since sailboats cannot sail directly into the wind, they must tack in order to reach the upwind mark (this process is called beating or working to the mark). This lengthens the course, thus the boat takes longer to reach the upwind mark than it would if it could have sailed directly towards it. The component of a sailboat's velocity that is in the direction of the next mark is called the velocity made good.

If a boat sails perpendicular to the wind, it will never reach the upwind mark. So, in racing, speed is not everything. What counts is the velocity made good, that is, the progress towards the upwind mark. Again, simple trigonometry can be used to calculate the velocity made good. ​Many boats can make good downwind faster by not sailing dead downwind, but instead gybing back and forth. If the boat can accelerate until the apparent wind is at angle off the bow, then it can make good downwind faster than the true wind.
SAFE SAILING
The survey objective is to record sailing performance across a variety of wind strengths.
Submitted sailing records in wind speeds greater than force 6 will not be recorded.

​To enter your speed record go to click the button below.