how sailships can sail upwind.

Question

I tried to google it and it left me very confused.

In: 306

Answer 1

Lots of great explanations but some are pretty elevated for this forum. Try this:

Let’s say the wind is coming from the north and blowing straight south. You want to go north in your boat. You can’t. Not exactly. But if you angle your sails just right, you can deflect the wind at a sharp angle and go North, North-east instead. Then, after a while, you can switch to deflecting the opposite and go north, north-west instead. So you might be going north a little each time you go east or west.