The Physics of Sailing

Perfetto

I had read a borrowed copy years ago and finally decided this was a book I needed to have in my personal library as I refer to it all the time in sailing discussion. Amazon and their merchant came through in a big way for me. This book explains a lot about why things work as they do and helps you become a better sailor.

Simply explained, no special formulas and at the end you have a significant understanding of the concept of sailing propulsion.

This was bought as a present for a sailing fanatic, who says it is superb and will relly help him to understand what is happening to his boat under stress. Although he has not yet completed the book. I read bits and would like to buy for myself at some time, the technical content seemed easy to understand.

This is a unique book somewhat bridging the qualitative and quantitative.Organization is good, starting with the hull, then keel, sails and lastly weather. My fellow sailors snuck it away when they could, and I think we did learn some things.Good was the hull speed derivation and shallow water wave speed derivation, and the discussions of scaling factors for the other technical parameters. Disappointing was that there were no other derivations and also that some of the figures are not well labeled (for instance, is cord length on Figures 3.8 a horizontal or vertical dimension?).Hopefully in a year or two there may be another edition, putting in somewhat more physics.Get this if you want a quick read to start to bridge the gap between the coffee table sailing books and proper yacht engineering tomes.