Physics Behind Sailboat Sail

Physics Principles Behind Sailboats How does a sailboat sail? One might be able to explain how a sailboat sails down wind, because almost everyone has seen some debris, such as a plastic bag drifting through the wind. The cause of this is the force of the wind pushing the bag and this force of the wind is greater than the force of resistance so the result is the movement of the bag. But, how does a sailboat sail against the wind and how does a sailboat sail faster than the wind? Aerodynamics and lift allow this to occur. Lift is the same principle that is related to airplanes, because the sail of a sailboat is virtually the same as the wing of an airplane, but turned sideways. The curve of the modern day lateen sail creates

When the sailboat is going sideways and heeling the water creates resistance on the keel to counteract the sideways force of the wind and result in a forward movement (Wolfe). But how can a smaller keel counteract the force on a much larger sail? Well the density of water is 1000 kg/m^3 and the density of air is 1.2 kg/m^3, so water is approximately 833 times denser then air. This means that more force is being exerted per square meter on the keel than the sail, so even though the keel is smaller it is still applying enough sideways motion to counteract almost all of the sideways force in the opposite direction created from the sail. On some larger sailboats there are ballasts, which are heavy weights in the bottom of the keel. Gravity pushes these heavy weights and it tries to go to the lowest point it can which would be when the keel is straight down and the sailboat is straight up. The acceleration of gravity is 9.81 m/s and this multiplied by the mass equals the force, so that means that the greater the mass of the ballast the more force is applied to straightening the heel of the sailboat and counteracting the sideways