7 ms·

How a yacht works: sailboat physics and design

254 points by stass 1y ago

stass 1y ago
This site is an absolute treasure trove of technical material on sail and hull design, with a focus on model yachts but most of the physics scales up. It covers aerofoil theory (momentum, circulation, lifting line), sail twist, downwash, planform effects, Reynolds number, hull resistance, appendage design, VMG, and more. Lots of spreadsheets and practical calculators too—bulb shape optimization, wetted surface area, simple VPP models. If you're into sail performance modeling or yacht design, this is one of the best resources out there.
- ModernMech 1y ago
  Yeah, I miss the days when a higher proportion of this Internet was content like this.
  - kqr 1y ago
    I prefer these days, when the absolute amount of information like this is higher, even if there's also higher amounts of junk. I can just not look at the junk today, compared to 25 years ago when the information I wanted only existed in a physical library in a different country.
    - stass 1y ago
      Even still a lot of information is not online. I've been building a web sail trim simulator and had to hunt down a physical copy of the Aero-Hydrodynamics of Sailing book by Marchaj, because a lot of the formulas and models I needed to simulate the boat were not online, and what was online was often wrong.
- metalman 1y ago
  Nice to see an enthusiast/engineering site that is putting cutting egde design ideas into the public domain. Grew up with boat builders on the south shore of Nova Scotia, and knew and learned from some of the last people to build and crew working schooners, that were also raced, I a boy, and they proud old men. Also know current builders and restorers of blue water boats. A few years ago I stumbled onto footage of a big hydrofoil cat that was the first boat to break the 50 knot barrier, you could tell that any celebrating was waiting and would largely be to celebrate still bieng alive, big seas, 50+kn, and quite clearly nothing but flinders left if anything broke and they plowed into a wave.,..,........they were standing on deck
reddit_clone 1y ago
On a related note, I would love to see an animated explanation for how sail ships worked. As a fan of Hornblower series,I suspect most of the relevant details went over my head because I didn't understand this.
- jasonpeacock 1y ago
  These are good animations for tall ships: Warship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI Explorer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYqXrFx6S8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYqXrFx6S8 They don't cover the actual physics and processes of sailing a tall ship, but they do explain all the parts and pieces and how they connect.
- barbs 1y ago
  Seems like a good contender for a https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/ interactive article.
  - askvictor 1y ago
    That's exactly what I was wishing existed when I was looking at these walls of text. There's https://ciechanow.ski/naval-architecture/ https://ciechanow.ski/naval-architecture/ which is interesting, but not quite the same
- amelius 1y ago
  I'd love to have a simulator for a sailboat, preferably running in a browser.
  - stass 1y ago
    I built one recently to mostly help myself visualize how sail trim worked and how various boat controls like mainsheet and backstay affected sail shapes, various forces and boat performance. It uses a physics-based VPP and I calibrated it against Catalina 36 polar charts, so should be pretty precise! I plan to integrate the simulator with the sail trim guide I'm building to help people learn. It's a WIP, but accessible at https://www.sailrhythm.com/ https://www.sailrhythm.com/ Happy to answer any questions!
WALoeIII 1y ago
Arvel Gentry must be mentioned, he transferred much of the aerodynamics research to sailing with an amazing series of magazine articles. He debunked a lot of faulty theories, like how the slot works, in a meticulous but approachable style. http://gentrysailing.com/magazines.html http://gentrysailing.com/magazines.html
- CalChris 1y ago
  Ugh. The slot theory lives on. The physics textbook still used at Berkeley, Giancoli, used the slot effect as an example despite … Gentry being a Berkeley grad. I sent a letter. I never got a response. However, the latest edition deleted the slot example and instead uses the Bernoulli principle yet stops short of Runge Kutta circulation.
jp57 1y ago
I've been getting into sailing, solely for the purpose of cruising and sailing for fun with no interest in racing. As I've started talking to sailors, I've realized that you need to gauge whether you're speaking with a racer or a cruiser. Racers will claim these are not mutually exclusive categories, because of course racers can also cruise. But racers who cruise will ultimately talk to you like racers. Racers are, as you might expect, fanatical about performance. They will go very deep into details about optimizing sail trim and shape, and using wildly-named specialized foresails (not merely spinnakers, but asymmetric spinnakers, reachers, screachers, code-zeroes, etc). It's a bit like talking to an SCCA racer about your new pickup truck. In fact, if you have a good grounding in the basics of sail trim ("when in doubt, let it out"), and know how to put a reef in you can have a fine time getting between points A and B in a sloop with a basic mainsail and jib.
- laluser 1y ago
  Isn't that the case with every hobby?
- th0ma5 1y ago
  There's also a specific argument in selling the racing is a better way to develop sailing skills because cruising ideally may not challenge you.
  - szundi 1y ago
    [dead]
- mlhpdx 1y ago
  I finished my first race Wednesday after a few years sailing casually. And, although it’s true that whenever there is more than one sailboat going the same direction it’s a race, being in a fleet on a defined course is much faster paced and precise. My analogy to driving is that cruising is being able to drive on empty roads, and racing is driving in traffic — it becomes about understanding the flow and rules spoken and unspoken.
  - 1y ago
boat34189 1y ago
At the extreme opposite, here's a terrific set of videos on big ship architecture, design, engineering, and operations. Like the RC model yachts page, much of it's relevant for mid-sized boats too. https://www.youtube.com/@DatawaveMarineSolutions/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DatawaveMarineSolutions/videos
mlhpdx 1y ago
The material seems dated. Modern yachts choose to be limited by displacement speeds but aren’t bound by them. New models that can rise on plane (like a speed boat) because of advances in materials and manufacturing are starting to proliferate (small sail boats known as “dinghies” have been doing this for decades but larger boats were limited by their heft). That’s not to even go into the wide ranging use of foils, which isn’t relevant to casual sailors but are prolific in high end racing. Sailing isn’t what it used to be.
- creeble 1y ago
  Racing isn’t what used to be, but sailing very much is. There are roughly two kinds of sailors: those who care about speed, and those who care about comfort. They have almost antipodal design requirements, but both kinds are very much sailors.
  - mmooss 1y ago
    Do you know of any good technical / physical comparison of the two, or just of the comfort designs?
    - creeble 1y ago
      Well, there's speed and then there's _speed_. As the OP says, very fast designs today are like the Sail Gran Prix [1] boats, 15m long foiling catamarans that go 3x the speed of the wind, up to around 50 knots. They bear nothing in common with a typical monohull cruiser, or even racer-cruiser like a J-109[2]. Let alone compared to a comfortable cruiser like a Hallberg-Rassy[3]. These are all displacement hulls, whose speed is fundamentally limited to waterline-length. There are monohull sailboats that can plane (most dinghys under 20' for example[4]), and there are large catamarans that can go much faster for their size than monohulls[5], but there are many tradeoffs in cost, dockage availability, and (somewhat subjectively) weather comfort. [1] https://sailgp.com https://sailgp.com [2] https://jboats.com/j109/why-j1093 https://jboats.com/j109/why-j1093 [3] https://www.hallberg-rassy.com/yachts/hallberg-rassy-370 https://www.hallberg-rassy.com/yachts/hallberg-rassy-370 [4] https://www.beneteau.com/en-us/first/first-14 https://www.beneteau.com/en-us/first/first-14 [5] https://www.catamarans-fountaine-pajot.com/en/sailing-catamarans/catamaran-new-41/ https://www.catamarans-fountaine-pajot.com/en/sailing-catama...
lasermatts 1y ago
I've been super interested in sailing since moving to San Francisco and running around the marinas/Embarcadero. Did some digging and found a sailing school that I haven't asked about classes (yet) https://www.spinnaker-sailing.com https://www.spinnaker-sailing.com There's even a school that offers boatbuilding lessons in Sausalito -- a bit too far/much of a time commitment for me! https://www.spauldingcenter.org/current-offerings https://www.spauldingcenter.org/current-offerings
- iancmceachern 1y ago
  There is an after-school boat building thing that just started up in crane cove Park too There are a ton of opportunities at South Beach Marina
- arnarbi 1y ago
  There are many sailing schools around SF, but one that stands out is https://www.cal-sailing.org/ https://www.cal-sailing.org/ - as it's by far the least expensive and low-commitment option to get on the water, and they have dinghies in which you'll learn very fast (but also get wet). Instructors are regular volunteer club members and mileage may vary, so make sure to go out with a few different ones. Another good way to get started is to find crewing opportunities for casual racing on https://www.latitude38.com/crew-list-home/ https://www.latitude38.com/crew-list-home/. Many skippers will take no-experience folks out for fun. (It may take a couple of attempts to find a skipper/crew you enjoy hanging out with)
  - clort 1y ago
    If you want to learn how to sail and actually how to sail as the person in charge, you need to be in a dinghy. Its small enough that every thing you do will affect the course and speed, you can feel every little difference and nobody else will confuse the issue by moving or changing anything without you noticing. Sure, having instructors around giving you tips is necessary but you are doing it and the feedback is immediate.
  - floren 1y ago
    I found CSC friendly but basically the boating equivalent of opening the encyclopedia at random and reading -- whichever instructor I ended up with would just decide what he wanted to teach/do that day, no structured curriculum. Presumably one could eventually learn enough to pass the test and be able to take dinghies out yourself, but I didn't have the patience--I bought my own and learned more in 30 minutes than I ever did at CSC
mmooss 1y ago
Does anyone know who Lester Gilbert is? I don't see an about page.
- philk10 1y ago
  https://www.onemetre.net/OtherTopics/Links/Links.htm https://www.onemetre.net/OtherTopics/Links/Links.htm
contingencies 1y ago
If you click 'Home' it is apparent this page is actually about radio-controlled racing yachts, which unlike the HN title explains the weird scope. Vessel design goals not mentioned in other comments: cruising requires storage space, seaworthiness, living space, will generally prioritize stability/safety, may prioritize low draft for tropical anchorages, may prioritize single-handed sailing, etc. Autonomous vessels which may require visibility, minimum height, battery storage, stealth, etc. Multihull vessels are not discussed, even though they dominate in many categories because they are generally functionally superior in many regards (speed, comfort, safety, living/cargo space, low draft) but cost more to acquire/maintain. Once you study this stuff enough you realize there's a reason why ~nobody cruises on trimarans, people without extra money avoid catamarans, people with enough money prefer to cruise on catamarans, and large seagoing ferries, military and cargo vessels with speed as a design goal are also usually catamarans. Fun fact: IIRC catamaran comes from kattumaram meaning "two stick tied together" in Tamil, the ancient Dravidian language of southern India. As such it is one of the few Tamil roots that entered international English vocabulary. South Indian seafaring empires once dominated sea trade as far east as Vietnam. Small multihull vessels are the hallmark of the Austronesian peoples, who are believed to have spread from Madagascar to Taiwan thence taken flight to populate the Pacific Ocean. Got breadfruit?
McNutty 1y ago
Bring back more of this type of internet content!
- stass 1y ago
  Please!
Zeetah 1y ago
I know nothing about sailing. I've been on a few sailboats. I love the idea of wind power - probably why I like flying remote control sailplanes. I would love to volunteer on someone's race/sail boat to get some experience. I'm happy to take the ASA introductory course or ? course. Any advice on how to move forward? I'm in the Seattle area.
- livelaughlove69 1y ago
  I have just started sailing in the UK. I can't recommend it enough. It's great time away from the computer in nature but still doing really complex technical tasks. The best thing imho is to find and join a local club. There are many that aren't snooty (having Commodores etc) and it's pretty affordable. Members will always be looking for crew. I really wish I had done it sooner.
  - livelaughlove69 1y ago
    I should say -- better in my experience to find a community run organisation run by its members than a commercial operation in my experience. A lot of clubs run on the enthusiasm of their members and this means lower prices and more opportunities to get involved
    - glitchcrab 1y ago
      Definitely agree here. I've been dinghy sailing for near 20 years now (in the UK) and most clubs will require you to do a couple of days a year as safety boat helm/crew (depending on experience) - it's not a lot of time to invest and it benefits everyone in the club.
- chaitimes 1y ago
  Join a club. There's also facebook groups looking for crews. But i guess if you don't have experience, you kind of have to provide an incentive like contributing higher towards the common costs.
- anon7000 1y ago
sailfast 1y ago
Reporting for duty. Just wanted to say you are doing god’s work. Everyone should have a chance to experience sailing.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
mendeza 1y ago
This is amazing, is there something like this about how a guitar works?! I would love to learn the physics of stringed instruments, and then design my own guitar or violin
serkandurusoy 1y ago
I haven't noticed many startups working on bringing modern tech to recreational sailing and cruising. Systems aboard a typical 35-50 foot sailboat produce interesting data streams, but the data don't seem to be used innovatively or interestingly. This makes me wonder if the market is too small compared to the unicorn-level valuations most seem to aim/hope for. Kind of putting this out there because I'm a liveaboard sailor looking out for startup ideas and it would be amazing if it were in the marine-tech space. So any feedback/suggestions would be more than welcome.
- ianburrell 1y ago
  The market is small, there are existing competitors, and things change slowly. I also suspect that there isn't much value that startup could bring. I bet there are fancy products for fancy yachts. There is a lot of open source going on. There is OpenCPN chart plotter. There is also NMEA OneNet which uses Ethernet so should support things that radars, plus make wiring easier.
  - serkandurusoy 1y ago
    Thanks, yes, I agree with all of those points. Perhaps still a big enough space for a bootstrapped indie business, for lack of VC scale. NMEA is quite interesting, though. Coupled with Czone for digital switching and power readings, I bet there is some interesting insight waiting to be discovered, one that can be monetized.

254 points by stass 1y ago

This site is an absolute treasure trove of technical material on sail and hull design, with a focus on model yachts but most of the physics scales up. It covers aerofoil theory (momentum, circulation, lifting line), sail twist, downwash, planform effects, Reynolds number, hull resistance, appendage design, VMG, and more. Lots of spreadsheets and practical calculators too—bulb shape optimization, wetted surface area, simple VPP models. If you're into sail performance modeling or yacht design, this is one of the best resources out there.

ModernMech 1y ago
Yeah, I miss the days when a higher proportion of this Internet was content like this.
- kqr 1y ago
  I prefer these days, when the absolute amount of information like this is higher, even if there's also higher amounts of junk. I can just not look at the junk today, compared to 25 years ago when the information I wanted only existed in a physical library in a different country.
  - stass 1y ago
    Even still a lot of information is not online. I've been building a web sail trim simulator and had to hunt down a physical copy of the Aero-Hydrodynamics of Sailing book by Marchaj, because a lot of the formulas and models I needed to simulate the boat were not online, and what was online was often wrong.
metalman 1y ago
Nice to see an enthusiast/engineering site that is putting cutting egde design ideas into the public domain. Grew up with boat builders on the south shore of Nova Scotia, and knew and learned from some of the last people to build and crew working schooners, that were also raced, I a boy, and they proud old men. Also know current builders and restorers of blue water boats. A few years ago I stumbled onto footage of a big hydrofoil cat that was the first boat to break the 50 knot barrier, you could tell that any celebrating was waiting and would largely be to celebrate still bieng alive, big seas, 50+kn, and quite clearly nothing but flinders left if anything broke and they plowed into a wave.,..,........they were standing on deck

reddit_clone 1y ago

On a related note, I would love to see an animated explanation for how sail ships worked. As a fan of Hornblower series,I suspect most of the relevant details went over my head because I didn't understand this.

jasonpeacock 1y ago
These are good animations for tall ships: Warship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI Explorer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYqXrFx6S8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYqXrFx6S8 They don't cover the actual physics and processes of sailing a tall ship, but they do explain all the parts and pieces and how they connect.
barbs 1y ago
Seems like a good contender for a https://ciechanow.ski/ https://ciechanow.ski/ interactive article.
- askvictor 1y ago
  That's exactly what I was wishing existed when I was looking at these walls of text. There's https://ciechanow.ski/naval-architecture/ https://ciechanow.ski/naval-architecture/ which is interesting, but not quite the same
amelius 1y ago
I'd love to have a simulator for a sailboat, preferably running in a browser.
- stass 1y ago
  I built one recently to mostly help myself visualize how sail trim worked and how various boat controls like mainsheet and backstay affected sail shapes, various forces and boat performance. It uses a physics-based VPP and I calibrated it against Catalina 36 polar charts, so should be pretty precise! I plan to integrate the simulator with the sail trim guide I'm building to help people learn. It's a WIP, but accessible at https://www.sailrhythm.com/ https://www.sailrhythm.com/ Happy to answer any questions!

WALoeIII 1y ago

Arvel Gentry must be mentioned, he transferred much of the aerodynamics research to sailing with an amazing series of magazine articles. He debunked a lot of faulty theories, like how the slot works, in a meticulous but approachable style. http://gentrysailing.com/magazines.html http://gentrysailing.com/magazines.html

CalChris 1y ago
Ugh. The slot theory lives on. The physics textbook still used at Berkeley, Giancoli, used the slot effect as an example despite … Gentry being a Berkeley grad. I sent a letter. I never got a response. However, the latest edition deleted the slot example and instead uses the Bernoulli principle yet stops short of Runge Kutta circulation.

jp57 1y ago

I've been getting into sailing, solely for the purpose of cruising and sailing for fun with no interest in racing. As I've started talking to sailors, I've realized that you need to gauge whether you're speaking with a racer or a cruiser. Racers will claim these are not mutually exclusive categories, because of course racers can also cruise. But racers who cruise will ultimately talk to you like racers. Racers are, as you might expect, fanatical about performance. They will go very deep into details about optimizing sail trim and shape, and using wildly-named specialized foresails (not merely spinnakers, but asymmetric spinnakers, reachers, screachers, code-zeroes, etc). It's a bit like talking to an SCCA racer about your new pickup truck. In fact, if you have a good grounding in the basics of sail trim ("when in doubt, let it out"), and know how to put a reef in you can have a fine time getting between points A and B in a sloop with a basic mainsail and jib.

laluser 1y ago
Isn't that the case with every hobby?
th0ma5 1y ago
There's also a specific argument in selling the racing is a better way to develop sailing skills because cruising ideally may not challenge you.
- szundi 1y ago
  [dead]
mlhpdx 1y ago
I finished my first race Wednesday after a few years sailing casually. And, although it’s true that whenever there is more than one sailboat going the same direction it’s a race, being in a fleet on a defined course is much faster paced and precise. My analogy to driving is that cruising is being able to drive on empty roads, and racing is driving in traffic — it becomes about understanding the flow and rules spoken and unspoken.
- 1y ago

boat34189 1y ago

At the extreme opposite, here's a terrific set of videos on big ship architecture, design, engineering, and operations. Like the RC model yachts page, much of it's relevant for mid-sized boats too. https://www.youtube.com/@DatawaveMarineSolutions/videos https://www.youtube.com/@DatawaveMarineSolutions/videos

mlhpdx 1y ago

The material seems dated. Modern yachts choose to be limited by displacement speeds but aren’t bound by them. New models that can rise on plane (like a speed boat) because of advances in materials and manufacturing are starting to proliferate (small sail boats known as “dinghies” have been doing this for decades but larger boats were limited by their heft). That’s not to even go into the wide ranging use of foils, which isn’t relevant to casual sailors but are prolific in high end racing. Sailing isn’t what it used to be.

creeble 1y ago
Racing isn’t what used to be, but sailing very much is. There are roughly two kinds of sailors: those who care about speed, and those who care about comfort. They have almost antipodal design requirements, but both kinds are very much sailors.
- mmooss 1y ago
  Do you know of any good technical / physical comparison of the two, or just of the comfort designs?
  - creeble 1y ago
    Well, there's speed and then there's _speed_. As the OP says, very fast designs today are like the Sail Gran Prix [1] boats, 15m long foiling catamarans that go 3x the speed of the wind, up to around 50 knots. They bear nothing in common with a typical monohull cruiser, or even racer-cruiser like a J-109[2]. Let alone compared to a comfortable cruiser like a Hallberg-Rassy[3]. These are all displacement hulls, whose speed is fundamentally limited to waterline-length. There are monohull sailboats that can plane (most dinghys under 20' for example[4]), and there are large catamarans that can go much faster for their size than monohulls[5], but there are many tradeoffs in cost, dockage availability, and (somewhat subjectively) weather comfort. [1] https://sailgp.com https://sailgp.com [2] https://jboats.com/j109/why-j1093 https://jboats.com/j109/why-j1093 [3] https://www.hallberg-rassy.com/yachts/hallberg-rassy-370 https://www.hallberg-rassy.com/yachts/hallberg-rassy-370 [4] https://www.beneteau.com/en-us/first/first-14 https://www.beneteau.com/en-us/first/first-14 [5] https://www.catamarans-fountaine-pajot.com/en/sailing-catamarans/catamaran-new-41/ https://www.catamarans-fountaine-pajot.com/en/sailing-catama...

lasermatts 1y ago

I've been super interested in sailing since moving to San Francisco and running around the marinas/Embarcadero. Did some digging and found a sailing school that I haven't asked about classes (yet) https://www.spinnaker-sailing.com https://www.spinnaker-sailing.com There's even a school that offers boatbuilding lessons in Sausalito -- a bit too far/much of a time commitment for me! https://www.spauldingcenter.org/current-offerings https://www.spauldingcenter.org/current-offerings

iancmceachern 1y ago
There is an after-school boat building thing that just started up in crane cove Park too There are a ton of opportunities at South Beach Marina
arnarbi 1y ago
There are many sailing schools around SF, but one that stands out is https://www.cal-sailing.org/ https://www.cal-sailing.org/ - as it's by far the least expensive and low-commitment option to get on the water, and they have dinghies in which you'll learn very fast (but also get wet). Instructors are regular volunteer club members and mileage may vary, so make sure to go out with a few different ones. Another good way to get started is to find crewing opportunities for casual racing on https://www.latitude38.com/crew-list-home/ https://www.latitude38.com/crew-list-home/. Many skippers will take no-experience folks out for fun. (It may take a couple of attempts to find a skipper/crew you enjoy hanging out with)
- clort 1y ago
  If you want to learn how to sail and actually how to sail as the person in charge, you need to be in a dinghy. Its small enough that every thing you do will affect the course and speed, you can feel every little difference and nobody else will confuse the issue by moving or changing anything without you noticing. Sure, having instructors around giving you tips is necessary but you are doing it and the feedback is immediate.
- floren 1y ago
  I found CSC friendly but basically the boating equivalent of opening the encyclopedia at random and reading -- whichever instructor I ended up with would just decide what he wanted to teach/do that day, no structured curriculum. Presumably one could eventually learn enough to pass the test and be able to take dinghies out yourself, but I didn't have the patience--I bought my own and learned more in 30 minutes than I ever did at CSC

mmooss 1y ago

Does anyone know who Lester Gilbert is? I don't see an about page.

philk10 1y ago
https://www.onemetre.net/OtherTopics/Links/Links.htm https://www.onemetre.net/OtherTopics/Links/Links.htm

contingencies 1y ago

If you click 'Home' it is apparent this page is actually about radio-controlled racing yachts, which unlike the HN title explains the weird scope. Vessel design goals not mentioned in other comments: cruising requires storage space, seaworthiness, living space, will generally prioritize stability/safety, may prioritize low draft for tropical anchorages, may prioritize single-handed sailing, etc. Autonomous vessels which may require visibility, minimum height, battery storage, stealth, etc. Multihull vessels are not discussed, even though they dominate in many categories because they are generally functionally superior in many regards (speed, comfort, safety, living/cargo space, low draft) but cost more to acquire/maintain. Once you study this stuff enough you realize there's a reason why ~nobody cruises on trimarans, people without extra money avoid catamarans, people with enough money prefer to cruise on catamarans, and large seagoing ferries, military and cargo vessels with speed as a design goal are also usually catamarans. Fun fact: IIRC catamaran comes from kattumaram meaning "two stick tied together" in Tamil, the ancient Dravidian language of southern India. As such it is one of the few Tamil roots that entered international English vocabulary. South Indian seafaring empires once dominated sea trade as far east as Vietnam. Small multihull vessels are the hallmark of the Austronesian peoples, who are believed to have spread from Madagascar to Taiwan thence taken flight to populate the Pacific Ocean. Got breadfruit?

McNutty 1y ago

Bring back more of this type of internet content!

stass 1y ago
Please!

Zeetah 1y ago

I know nothing about sailing. I've been on a few sailboats. I love the idea of wind power - probably why I like flying remote control sailplanes. I would love to volunteer on someone's race/sail boat to get some experience. I'm happy to take the ASA introductory course or ? course. Any advice on how to move forward? I'm in the Seattle area.

livelaughlove69 1y ago
I have just started sailing in the UK. I can't recommend it enough. It's great time away from the computer in nature but still doing really complex technical tasks. The best thing imho is to find and join a local club. There are many that aren't snooty (having Commodores etc) and it's pretty affordable. Members will always be looking for crew. I really wish I had done it sooner.
- livelaughlove69 1y ago
  I should say -- better in my experience to find a community run organisation run by its members than a commercial operation in my experience. A lot of clubs run on the enthusiasm of their members and this means lower prices and more opportunities to get involved
  - glitchcrab 1y ago
    Definitely agree here. I've been dinghy sailing for near 20 years now (in the UK) and most clubs will require you to do a couple of days a year as safety boat helm/crew (depending on experience) - it's not a lot of time to invest and it benefits everyone in the club.
chaitimes 1y ago
Join a club. There's also facebook groups looking for crews. But i guess if you don't have experience, you kind of have to provide an incentive like contributing higher towards the common costs.
anon7000 1y ago

sailfast 1y ago

Reporting for duty. Just wanted to say you are doing god’s work. Everyone should have a chance to experience sailing.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

mendeza 1y ago

This is amazing, is there something like this about how a guitar works?! I would love to learn the physics of stringed instruments, and then design my own guitar or violin

serkandurusoy 1y ago

I haven't noticed many startups working on bringing modern tech to recreational sailing and cruising. Systems aboard a typical 35-50 foot sailboat produce interesting data streams, but the data don't seem to be used innovatively or interestingly. This makes me wonder if the market is too small compared to the unicorn-level valuations most seem to aim/hope for. Kind of putting this out there because I'm a liveaboard sailor looking out for startup ideas and it would be amazing if it were in the marine-tech space. So any feedback/suggestions would be more than welcome.

ianburrell 1y ago
The market is small, there are existing competitors, and things change slowly. I also suspect that there isn't much value that startup could bring. I bet there are fancy products for fancy yachts. There is a lot of open source going on. There is OpenCPN chart plotter. There is also NMEA OneNet which uses Ethernet so should support things that radars, plus make wiring easier.
- serkandurusoy 1y ago
  Thanks, yes, I agree with all of those points. Perhaps still a big enough space for a bootstrapped indie business, for lack of VC scale. NMEA is quite interesting, though. Coupled with Czone for digital switching and power readings, I bet there is some interesting insight waiting to be discovered, one that can be monetized.