I enjoy you videos immensely! Obviously the amount of leeway depends on the point of sail (how the wind hits the superstructure and sails) and the trim of the sails - angle, depth, etc.. - which creates lift (driving the boat forward when close hauled or on a reach) and the amount of resistance provided by friction in the water and water flowing past the hull, rudder(s) and keel. As a result it is difficult to calculate. AGREED. With any boat and a lot of experience one can record a log of the leeways observed for various wind states and directions, boat speeds and sail trim/configurations. While of course responding to weather helm (leeway) by pointing a few degrees towards the wind 3-5-10 degrees is typical to stay on your desired ground track -- it does not help when trying to determine your forecast position or DR position. Is it possible to account for anticipated Leeway when route planning ? Mostly this seems to be ignored. The guidance is to simply to adjust the course to steer and head of along the track - but if the wind is abaft the beam the leeway will be helping (increasing the speed along the track) and if forward of the beam it will be hurting (slowing the speed along the ground track). Simple maths tells me that if there is a northerly wind (from 000) and you are sailing close hauled (at 055˚) at 5 Knots to a waypoint 5NM away; and you have to allow 10˚ of weather helm to stay on track - so steering 045˚ -- then over a period of 1 hour the leeway will drive the boat roughly equivalent to 0.833 NM along a bearing of 140˚ away from your 045˚ heading back towards your planned ground track. Given the wind is coming from forward of the beam your boat will arrive slightly later than you had estimated in your original plan in this case a few minutes. Obviously much later if your journey is longer on the same tack. Do you take account of the wind forecast and the associated leeway when passage planning the routes you will take? Do your plans set out the reaches/legs and tacking waypoints you anticipate you will make based on the forecast wind/tides etc... ?
I enjoy you videos immensely! The sound quality of the voice over is poor though. Please check your mic settings.
We think we have this fixed for future videos.
I enjoy you videos immensely! Obviously the amount of leeway depends on the point of sail (how the wind hits the superstructure and sails) and the trim of the sails - angle, depth, etc.. - which creates lift (driving the boat forward when close hauled or on a reach) and the amount of resistance provided by friction in the water and water flowing past the hull, rudder(s) and keel. As a result it is difficult to calculate. AGREED. With any boat and a lot of experience one can record a log of the leeways observed for various wind states and directions, boat speeds and sail trim/configurations.
While of course responding to weather helm (leeway) by pointing a few degrees towards the wind 3-5-10 degrees is typical to stay on your desired ground track -- it does not help when trying to determine your forecast position or DR position.
Is it possible to account for anticipated Leeway when route planning ? Mostly this seems to be ignored.
The guidance is to simply to adjust the course to steer and head of along the track - but if the wind is abaft the beam the leeway will be helping (increasing the speed along the track) and if forward of the beam it will be hurting (slowing the speed along the ground track).
Simple maths tells me that if there is a northerly wind (from 000) and you are sailing close hauled (at 055˚) at 5 Knots to a waypoint 5NM away; and you have to allow 10˚ of weather helm to stay on track - so steering 045˚ -- then over a period of 1 hour the leeway will drive the boat roughly equivalent to 0.833 NM along a bearing of 140˚ away from your 045˚ heading back towards your planned ground track. Given the wind is coming from forward of the beam your boat will arrive slightly later than you had estimated in your original plan in this case a few minutes. Obviously much later if your journey is longer on the same tack.
Do you take account of the wind forecast and the associated leeway when passage planning the routes you will take? Do your plans set out the reaches/legs and tacking waypoints you anticipate you will make based on the forecast wind/tides etc... ?
Thanks fo rthe comments. I'm not experienced in distance racing, so I'm not going to be able to comment on your thoughts.
sailworld and rumble links are not working for me.
Thanks for the feedback. We fixed the links. Please try again.