The word sailboat evokes a feeling of adventure and a bit of mystery. While you don’t need to be a mathematician or physicist to sail, understanding basic concepts like center of effort and lateral resistance will help you connect sailing terminology with what you see and feel out on the water.
The symmetrical shape of the sailboat’s hull balances it and reduces drag, or backward pull from friction, as it moves through water. A rudder, located inside the hull in the stern (back end) of the boat, steers it. The mainsail and jib are two sails that generate the force that drives the boat forward, powered by the wind’s interaction with them. Two prominent theories of sail performance explain the forces at work: Bernoulli’s theorem and Newton’s Third Law, which states that every action has an equal and opposite reaction.
A keel, submerged beneath the hull, prevents the boat from being blown sideways by the wind. It also holds the ballast, a weight traditionally placed at the bottom of the keel that helps make the sailboat stable.
Some sailors prefer the feel of a catamaran, which has twin hulls separated by a deckhouse. Catamarans are especially popular with new sailors and their passengers, who appreciate a more disengaged division of space that allows them to be closer to the sea. They can also go in shallower water than a monohull and can be beached, meaning they can be towed onshore when the tide comes in.
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