In a recent Veritasium video, they discuss that a sailboat can travel further downwind than the wind speed. Steve Mould, in a reaction video, explained how a boat can travel faster than the wind at an angle, but not really how it can end up further down wind than the actual wind speed. I’m having trouble connecting these explanations…Links below for both videos.
https://youtu.be/u5InZ6iknUM
In: Physics
So, in the Steve Mould video, you should have learned from the stick wheel demonstration that the distance your boat moves can be greater than the distance the wind has moved in the same period of time, provided you’re at an angle to the wind, right? Well, as you might imagine, that’s great if you want to go in a different direction to the wind, but not so much if you want to go in the same direction.
What you do then is once you’ve gone a fair distance one direction, you turn your boat and your sail so that you’re at the same angle to the wind but in the opposite direction. This way, you’ve made two long stretches of movement in directions different to the wind, but the total distance you’ve moved just in the same direction as the wind is still higher than the distance the wind has moved in the same period of time. At 8:49, Steve talks briefly about tacking, the method of moving against the wind by making short movements at alternating angles to it, and the same principle can work downwind.
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