Pointing Higher Isn't Always Sailing Faster

The boat pointing closest to the mark may not be the boat that reaches it first.

One of the most tempting things to do when sailing upwind is to point the boat as high as possible.

The windward mark is over there. Surely, if I can get the bow a few degrees closer to it, I must be making better progress?

It feels logical.

It can also be completely wrong.

A boat that points very high but moves slowly may actually make less progress towards the mark than another boat sailing several degrees lower but travelling considerably faster.

This is one of those sailing lessons that sounds slightly counter-intuitive until you experience it on the water.

And once you understand it, you begin to look at upwind sailing rather differently.

We Have Already Accepted That We Have to Zigzag

Earlier in this series I looked at the apparently strange fact that, when sailing towards a destination directly upwind, the fastest route involves sailing away from the direct line.

A sailing boat cannot normally sail straight into the wind.

Instead, we sail close-hauled on one tack, tack through the wind, and continue on the other.

So our route becomes a zigzag.

That immediately introduces another question:

How steep should those zigzags be?

Should we sail as close to the wind as the boat will possibly tolerate?

Or should we bear away slightly and go faster?

The answer is usually somewhere between the two extremes.

And finding that point is one of the skills that separates simply sailing the boat from sailing it well.

Pointing and Speed Are Not the Same Thing

Imagine two identical boats sailing towards the same windward mark.

Boat A is pointing very high.

Boat B is sailing perhaps five degrees lower.

At first glance, Boat A looks better.

Its bow is much closer to the mark.

But suppose Boat A is travelling at only 3 knots because the sails are beginning to stall.

Boat B, sailing slightly lower, is travelling at 4.5 knots.

Which is actually getting towards the mark faster?

That is where velocity made good, usually shortened to VMG, becomes useful.

VMG is the part of the boat's velocity that is actually taking it towards the destination.

In simplified form:

VMG = boat speed x cos(angle away from the required direction)

You do not need to perform this calculation while sailing.

The important idea is much simpler:

Boat speed only matters if some of that speed is taking you where you want to go.

Equally:

Pointing towards the mark only matters if the boat is still moving efficiently.

The Temptation to Pinch

Beginners often discover that they can make the boat point slightly higher by pulling the sails in and steering closer to the wind.

For a few moments it feels wonderful.

The bow seems to creep towards the mark.

You appear to be gaining height.

This is called pinching.

The problem is that the sails increasingly stop behaving like efficient aerofoils.

The airflow becomes less effective.

The boat slows.

The centreboard or keel becomes less effective because less water is flowing past it.

The rudder becomes less effective.

Momentum disappears.

A small wave or patch of disturbed water slows the boat still further.

Eventually you may have a boat pointing beautifully towards the windward mark while hardly moving at all.

That is not fast sailing.

It is simply pointing.

Sailing Higher Can Sometimes Feel Faster Than It Really Is

There is also a psychological problem.

Direction is very easy to see.

Speed is much harder to judge accurately.

You can look along the bow and immediately see that it is pointing close to the mark.

That gives a strong impression of progress.

But losing half a knot or a knot can be surprisingly difficult to notice.

On an inland river such as the Thames, this can be even more deceptive.

There may be trees, moored boats, riverbanks and nearby competitors giving you plenty of visual references.

You can clearly see the bow pointing higher.

But you may not immediately notice that the boat has lost momentum.

That is why experienced sailors often pay attention to things other than where the bow happens to be pointing.

They feel the boat.

They watch the tell-tales.

They notice the pressure in the sails.

They feel the load on the helm.

They listen to the water.

They watch what another boat nearby is doing.

Tell-Tales Can Reveal the Problem

Tell-tales are particularly useful when trying to avoid pinching.

Sailing close-hauled, there should normally be clean airflow across both sides of the jib.

If you begin steering too close to the wind, the windward tell-tale will usually begin lifting.

A small amount of movement may simply tell you that you are very close to your optimum angle.

But if it is lifting continuously while the leeward tell-tale remains streaming, you may be asking too much of the sail.

The boat is warning you:

You are too close to the wind.

Bear away slightly.

Restore the airflow.

Let the boat accelerate.

It may feel as though you are sailing in the wrong direction.

Yet your progress towards the mark may improve.

Speed First, Height Second

There is a useful principle when coming out of a tack.

Do not immediately try to squeeze every possible degree of pointing angle from the boat.

The boat has just lost some speed during the manoeuvre.

What it needs first is acceleration.

So after the tack, it can often be advantageous to sail very slightly lower for a few moments.

Build speed.

Get the foils working efficiently again.

Restore pressure in the sails.

Then gradually head up towards your normal close-hauled angle.

You can think of it as:

speed first, then height.

Trying to point too high immediately after the tack can leave the boat struggling to accelerate.

This becomes especially noticeable in light winds.

A Simple Example

Imagine Boat A sails at 3.0 knots at 35 degrees from the direction of the windward mark.

Its approximate VMG is:

3.0 x cos(35 degrees)

which is approximately:

2.46 knots

Now imagine Boat B sails slightly lower, at 42 degrees, but because the sails are working better it travels at 4.0 knots.

Its VMG is approximately:

4.0 x cos(42 degrees)

or about:

2.97 knots

Boat B is pointing seven degrees lower.

Yet it is making considerably faster progress towards the windward mark.

Over a long beat, that difference becomes enormous.

The precise figures will vary with the boat, sails, wind and water conditions.

The principle does not.

But Don't Take This Too Far

Of course, bearing away is not automatically faster either.

If you sail too low, the boat may become beautifully fast while making poor progress towards the mark.

Imagine bearing away another twenty degrees.

The boat accelerates.

Everyone feels pleased.

There is plenty of pressure in the sails.

The wake looks impressive.

Unfortunately, you are now travelling much farther sideways than necessary.

Eventually you must recover that lost height.

So there are two inefficient extremes.

Too high: excellent pointing, poor speed.

Too low: excellent speed, poor pointing.

Between them is an optimum combination.

That is what sailors are trying to find.

The Optimum Angle Changes

Unfortunately, there is no single magic heading.

The best compromise between speed and pointing changes constantly.

It depends on:

• wind strength;

• gusts and lulls;

• waves;

• current;

• sail condition;

• crew weight;

• boat design;

• sail trim;

• water smoothness;

• tactical considerations.

In light winds, maintaining momentum may be particularly important.

In stronger winds, the boat may have more than enough power, and sailing slightly higher may become possible.

In waves, you may need to bear away slightly to keep the boat moving through the water.

On flat inland water, you may be able to sail closer to the optimum pointing angle for longer.

And on the Thames, the wind direction itself may alter repeatedly as it passes over trees, buildings and bends in the river.

The optimum angle you found thirty seconds ago may no longer be the optimum angle now.

Champagne Makes This Especially Interesting

Sailing the A-Rater Champagne makes this subject particularly fascinating.

An A-Rater is very different from the typical training dinghy.

It is long, narrow, powerful and designed specifically for racing on the Thames.

When the boat is moving properly, there is a very definite sense of momentum.

Lose that momentum unnecessarily and you may give away much more than the few degrees of pointing appeared to gain.

It is therefore a wonderful boat on which to observe the relationship between sail trim, helm balance, pointing angle and speed.

You can feel when the boat is alive.

Equally, you can feel when it has been strangled by asking it to point just a little too high.

That difference between looking as though you are going the right way and actually travelling efficiently is one of the recurring lessons of sailing.

Watch Another Boat

One of the simplest experiments requires no instruments at all.

Sail close to another similar boat going upwind.

For a few minutes, concentrate on pointing slightly higher.

Do not worry initially about whether you are getting ahead.

Then compare your position.

You may find yourself slightly farther to windward but considerably farther behind.

Next, bear away a few degrees and concentrate on maintaining speed.

Again compare positions.

You may find that although the other boat initially appears to be pointing closer to the mark, you begin moving forward relative to it.

This is sometimes called comparing height and speed.

Racing sailors do it constantly.

A boat beside you becomes an extremely useful measuring instrument.

A Better Practical Experiment

This would also make an excellent sailing exercise using GPS data.

Choose a reasonably steady wind and sail several upwind runs.

On the first run, deliberately try to point very high.

Record:

• average boat speed;

• heading;

• track;

• time taken.

On the second run, sail slightly lower and concentrate on speed.

On the third, try to find the best compromise.

Plot the tracks afterwards.

The result can be revealing.

The highest-pointing run may not have produced the fastest progress towards the upwind destination.

This would be a particularly interesting exercise with Champagne because GPS data, video and observations from another boat could be combined.

A camera aboard Coyote, for example, could record the boat's attitude and sails while GPS data shows what was actually happening.

That turns something sailors often describe as "feel" into something we can analyse.

The Polar Diagram

More sophisticated sailors and yacht racers may come across a polar diagram.

A polar diagram shows approximately how fast a particular boat can sail at different angles to the wind.

It makes the whole idea visible.

Very close to the wind, speed falls dramatically.

Bear away slightly and speed increases.

Eventually, however, although boat speed continues increasing, the boat is no longer making the greatest possible progress directly upwind.

The optimum upwind VMG lies somewhere between those positions.

Modern sailing instruments can calculate this.

On a dinghy or river racing boat, however, much of the same information can be obtained by feel, experience and comparison.

You do not need a computer to notice that your boat has stopped.

Gusts Complicate the Picture

Now connect this idea with another article in this series: reading approaching gusts.

Suppose you are sailing close-hauled and a gust arrives.

The boat accelerates.

You suddenly have more power available.

That extra energy may allow you to point slightly higher while maintaining good speed.

So in the gust, you might gain both speed and height.

Then the gust passes.

If you keep trying to maintain exactly the same heading, the boat may begin slowing.

Now you may need to bear away slightly to rebuild speed.

This means good upwind sailing is not simply:

Choose a heading and hold it.

Instead, you are continually balancing:

speed — pointing — pressure — trim — wind direction.

That is why small adjustments matter so much.

Headers and Lifts Add Another Dimension

There is another complication.

The wind itself changes direction.

Imagine you are sailing towards a windward mark and suddenly your heading appears worse.

You may not have done anything wrong.

The wind may have headed you.

Equally, another boat may suddenly appear to point much closer to the mark because it has entered a lift.

This brings us back to the earlier articles on headers and lifts.

An efficient upwind sailor is therefore asking two different questions:

Am I sailing at the correct angle to the wind?

and:

Am I on the correct tack for the wind I currently have?

Those are not the same question.

Sometimes Tactical Position Matters More Than Perfect VMG

There is one more important qualification.

Racing is not performed in a laboratory.

Sometimes the theoretically fastest VMG is not the tactically sensible choice.

You might point slightly higher because you need to clear another boat.

You might sail lower temporarily to accelerate through disturbed air.

You may need to reach an advantageous part of the river.

You might avoid shallow water.

You may want to stay out of an adverse current.

On a narrow river, you may be approaching the bank and preparing to tack.

So VMG is an extremely useful concept, but it is not the only consideration.

Sailing remains a combination of physics, observation, boat handling and tactics.

Try This the Next Time You Sail

The next time you are beating upwind, deliberately experiment.

First sail just a little too high.

Feel what happens.

Notice:

• the tell-tales;

• the pressure in the sails;

• the tiller;

• the boat speed;

• the sound of the water;

• the wake.

Then bear away perhaps two or three degrees.

Do not make a dramatic change.

Wait.

Feel the boat accelerate.

Notice whether the helm becomes lighter.

Watch the tell-tales settle.

Then gradually head up again.

You are trying to find the point immediately before the boat begins losing useful speed.

That point will move as the conditions change.

Finding it repeatedly is part of becoming a better sailor.

The Fastest Boat May Look as Though It Is Going the Wrong Way

This is one of the reasons sailing can be so deceptive when viewed from the bank.

A spectator might see one boat pointing beautifully towards the next mark while another appears to be sailing farther away from it.

A minute later, the apparently badly directed boat is ahead.

There was nothing mysterious about it.

It simply converted more of the available wind into useful progress.

That is also why "point higher" is not always good coaching advice.

A better instruction might sometimes be:

"Get the boat moving."

Once the speed is there, the height can often follow.

Sailing Is a Constant Compromise

This lesson reaches well beyond pointing.

Fast sailing is rarely about maximising one thing.

Maximum heel is not maximum speed.

Maximum sheet tension is not automatically maximum power.

Maximum pointing is not automatically maximum upwind progress.

Maximum boat speed is not automatically maximum progress towards the mark.

Good sailing comes from balancing competing effects.

And that is what makes it so interesting.

You are not simply steering towards a destination.

You are continuously solving a moving problem involving wind, water, sails, hull, crew and tactics.

The Final Lesson

When learning to sail upwind, it is natural to keep looking at the mark and trying to point the bow towards it.

Eventually, however, you realise that the mark is not telling you everything you need to know.

Look at the sails.

Feel the helm.

Watch the water.

Notice the speed.

Compare yourself with another boat.

And remember:

The aim is not to point closest to the mark. The aim is to reach it first.

Sometimes the fastest way towards your destination involves pointing slightly farther away from it.

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