Sailing has not lost its popularity, and with the advent of windsurfing, it finds more and more adherents. For those who are just planning to become a yachtsman or windsurfer, it is not always clear how you can sail, especially against the wind.
Sail types
First, man invented the so-called "straight" sail. Its design is rather primitive - it is a rectangular piece of dense fabric that was attached to a mast across the hull of a boat or ship. With such a sail, this boat could move to its destination only when the wind was fair or at least blowing in the right direction so that the trajectory of the vessel could be adjusted by slightly turning the sail around the mast axis. When the wind blew towards such a vessel, it was forced to lower its sails and anchor, waiting for the wind to change in order to continue its journey.
The revolutionary invention - the "oblique" sail - allowed ships to get rid of the dependence on the direction of the wind. It is believed that the Polynesians were the first to invent a new form of sail, since only with such a sail it was possible to inhabit the many islands scattered across the Pacific Ocean. Then this idea was borrowed by the Arabs, famous sailors and discoverers in the ancient world, and from them - already Europeans, who with his help began to travel around the world and discover continents.
How the ship moves under sail
The oblique sail is not located symmetrically with respect to the mast, but only on one side of it, while it can easily turn, rotating around the mast axis. The shape of such a sail is often triangular, but there are also quadrangular oblique sails. In order for the structure to have a shape, a boom is used - a stretch, which is attached to the mast at one end, and to the end of the sail with the other. To maintain shape, shkotorins are also used - flexible plates made of durable material that are inserted into special sail pockets.
This design, when the long leg of the rectangle of the sail is attached along the mast, and the short leg to the movable boom, allows the vessel to maneuver towards the wind, changing the position of the sail - setting it to the right and left of the mast along the course of the vessel. At the same time, when the wind is fair, as in the case of a straight sail, there is no need to maneuver - the oblique sail is simply installed across the hull of the boat or windsurf board and the floating craft moves through the water in the direction set by the wind.
In the event that there is a headwind, the sailing vessel begins to maneuver - change direction or, as sailors say, tack, moving in a zigzag direction to the target. To change tack, it is enough to deploy the sail through the bow or through the stern. To prevent a light vessel from being carried along the surface of the water by the force of the wind, a centerboard is used - a large oblique fin, which is installed in the bottom in the center of the vessel, it, without interfering with moving forward, prevents movement to the side.
