The Physics of Sailing - basics from KQED...

[Thorne]

...and it just so happens that the NASA guys in the show are active members of the sailing club here on base.

Pretty basic stuff but good for beginners.

http://www.kqed.org/quest/television/the-physics-of-sailing

[rbgarr]

The experiment with the wing shape in fluid is misleading. Sails are not solid wing shapes (they are curved, flexible 'membranes') and if they were to show one in the fluid tank there would be a different result in the observed flow, one which would not demonstrate the thesis.

Arvel Gentry's magazine articles describing how sails work (in the links on the site) are much more complete and accurate: http://www.arvelgentry.com/magaz.htm

[Thorne]

Right - they say that the sails are a sort of wiggly wing, and I suspect that it is more of a demonstration for TV than any sort of experiment here at Ames.