A sailboat is a vessel with sails, designed to travel through water at wind speed. It has a hull with space for passengers and cargo. It also has a mast which is taller than the rest of the ship and carries the sails.
Modern archaeologists believe that the first sailing boats appeared around 6,000 years ago. However, the first truly modern sailboat was built in the 1700s and 1800s.
Sailboats are usually divided into three parts: the deck, the cockpit and the keel. The deck is the area where you stand and the part of the hull which houses the sails, rigging and hardware. The cockpit is a recessed area where the captain controls the boat. It is usually sheltered by an awning, or bimini, to protect you from the sun and rain.
The keel is shaped to generate lift in a direction opposite that of the lift generated by the sails. This twist in the flow of water creates vortices behind the keel which increase the resistance to motion through the water.
Turbulence increases resistance to motion through the water by a factor of four or five over smooth surfaces. To minimize resistance, designers try to make a sailboat’s hull surface as smooth as possible. They do this by varying the shape of the hull, and by making it taper from bow to stern. They try to have the stern rise smoothly from the water, since this reduces drag and eddies.
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