Sailing Thing #64: Sailing rudderless (Cool thing to try while sailing 6)
The title of this post probably has you flabbergasted. The rudder, along with the sails, is one of the things most landlubbers will recognise about a boat. This is the direction control, our 'steering wheel', so to speak. So I'm expecting the question running through your mind is how the hell do you steer the boat without a steering device?
(I demo-ed this for someone today, and they were certainly wondering how it was possible before I showed them.)
I think it's probably true to say of most sports that the coolest things to try are not beginner-friendly. This one certainly isn't. Because it requires you to really understand how all the elements of your boat work - the sails, the centreboard, the boat heel. It's either a lot of physics or just plain know-how from having sailed a long time.
I'll try and explain nevertheless.
Without the rudder, there are three main ways you can control how the boat turns.
1. Sails
2. Body weight (fore and aft i.e. backwards and forwards)
3. Body weight (in and out i.e. left and right)
Basic diagrams to try and explain #1 and #3.
Sails:
Body weight in and out:
And a nifty Googled picture that's less stick-figurish!
And I can't draw #2 because it's kind of three-dimensional, so you'll just have to believe me when I say that moving forward in the boat helps it to turn away from the wind ('bear away') and moving back in the boat helps it to turn towards the wind ('point up').
Without a rudder, we use a combination of these three techniques to get the boat to turn where we want. Granted, it's not as precise as when a rudder guides the boat, but it works.
Still don't believe me? Gosh, I wish I had a photo of doing this on my own boat because it looks way cool with the trapeze and everything, if I do say so myself. But here are some I've found on Google:
(It's a little more tricky on a single-sail boat because less pivoting effect so you have to balance principle #2 with principle #1, but that also means the turning is slower and less likely to overshoot where you want to go.)
The thing about rudderless sailing is that it also makes you less reliant on turning the boat using your rudder (I think I alluded to this when explaining the 470s) and so you bring that into your actual sailing style. By using body weight and sail positioning to help turn the boat so that the rudder is only used for additional fine-tuning.
Why this is important is because while the rudder steers, it also acts as a brake, because turning it against the direction of movement = placing a large flat surface straight through water. (Go ahead and try it - take a chopping board and try moving it flat-surface-wise through the water. Then try moving it thin edge first.) The less we present the big flat surface, the less we brake. Simple as that. So the reason why sailing without a rudder is cool ... well, it's because it is the 'pro' way to sail. ;)
---
Take the 100 things challenge @ 100things_index!
Masterlist; Progress: 64/100
---
A replay of the Olympics opening ceremony is on TV at the moment. I'm waiting for Singapore to march in to see if I can spot my friends. I missed the first bit of the replay because I got home after it, though. Pity, I heard JKR gave a reading!
(Eep, just as I typed that there was a sudden crash of thunder. Eerie.)
ETA: Caught it! Saw Betsy just before the camera zoomed out, but I didn't spot my other friends. The commentator named them, though, and managed to mispronounce Colin's last name. Wtf is wrong with our media?! (It's a Singaporean channel and commentator.)
(I demo-ed this for someone today, and they were certainly wondering how it was possible before I showed them.)
I think it's probably true to say of most sports that the coolest things to try are not beginner-friendly. This one certainly isn't. Because it requires you to really understand how all the elements of your boat work - the sails, the centreboard, the boat heel. It's either a lot of physics or just plain know-how from having sailed a long time.
I'll try and explain nevertheless.
Without the rudder, there are three main ways you can control how the boat turns.
1. Sails
2. Body weight (fore and aft i.e. backwards and forwards)
3. Body weight (in and out i.e. left and right)
Basic diagrams to try and explain #1 and #3.
Sails:
Body weight in and out:
And a nifty Googled picture that's less stick-figurish!
And I can't draw #2 because it's kind of three-dimensional, so you'll just have to believe me when I say that moving forward in the boat helps it to turn away from the wind ('bear away') and moving back in the boat helps it to turn towards the wind ('point up').
Without a rudder, we use a combination of these three techniques to get the boat to turn where we want. Granted, it's not as precise as when a rudder guides the boat, but it works.
Still don't believe me? Gosh, I wish I had a photo of doing this on my own boat because it looks way cool with the trapeze and everything, if I do say so myself. But here are some I've found on Google:
(It's a little more tricky on a single-sail boat because less pivoting effect so you have to balance principle #2 with principle #1, but that also means the turning is slower and less likely to overshoot where you want to go.)
The thing about rudderless sailing is that it also makes you less reliant on turning the boat using your rudder (I think I alluded to this when explaining the 470s) and so you bring that into your actual sailing style. By using body weight and sail positioning to help turn the boat so that the rudder is only used for additional fine-tuning.
Why this is important is because while the rudder steers, it also acts as a brake, because turning it against the direction of movement = placing a large flat surface straight through water. (Go ahead and try it - take a chopping board and try moving it flat-surface-wise through the water. Then try moving it thin edge first.) The less we present the big flat surface, the less we brake. Simple as that. So the reason why sailing without a rudder is cool ... well, it's because it is the 'pro' way to sail. ;)
---
Take the 100 things challenge @ 100things_index!
Masterlist; Progress: 64/100
---
A replay of the Olympics opening ceremony is on TV at the moment. I'm waiting for Singapore to march in to see if I can spot my friends. I missed the first bit of the replay because I got home after it, though. Pity, I heard JKR gave a reading!
(Eep, just as I typed that there was a sudden crash of thunder. Eerie.)
ETA: Caught it! Saw Betsy just before the camera zoomed out, but I didn't spot my other friends. The commentator named them, though, and managed to mispronounce Colin's last name. Wtf is wrong with our media?! (It's a Singaporean channel and commentator.)