my bad, should have reblogged from here.
Oh my gods, guys, this looks so useful!!
Reblogging for future reference.
A reference I desperately needed
For all those seafaring adventurers.
*rubs hands together in sailor glee*
Just be sure to remember, guys, that the Points of Sail graphic (that one that looks like a circle) depicts the wind dynamic for a fore-and-aft sail plan (sails set along the line of the keel) and NOT for a square rigged boat (sails perpendicular to the keel) . The points of sail for a square rig look like this:
(In this graphic the wind is coming from the bottom right corner, whereas in the fore-and-aft one it’s coming from the top. Sorry if that’s confusing.)
The two styles of boats interact with the wind in fundamentally different ways: with a fore-and-aft rig, the wind pushes against the sails sideways, and the keel underneath the boat pushes against the water in the opposite direction. The two opposing sideways forces cancel out and translate into forward motion: think of squeezing a watermelon seed between your fingers. This is what allows these boats to sail so much closer to the wind: the wind doesn’t need to be pushing forward on the sail for the boat to sail forward. With a square-rigged boat, you’re relying on the wind pushing forward on the sails for your power. It’s a game of how much area you can present to the wind, and in order to sail in a different direction than where the wind is blowing, the sails must be angled to remain perpendicular to the wind. This limits the directions in which a square-rigged boat can sail, which is why the points of sail look so different.