How do boats sail?
A sailboat has four basic components that allow it to sail. They are the hull, the sail(s), the keel or centerboard, and the rudder. The hull is obviously designed to carry crew, equipment, rigging (mast, spars, etc.) and move through the water with ease. The sails actually provide the force to make the boat move through the water. To imagine a sailboat going away from the wind or having the wind push on the sails is fairly straight forward. It is more difficult, however, to understand how a boat sails toward the wind. In actuality sailboats cannot sail directly into the wind. As mentioned above there is a “no go zone” in which the sails provide no power to move the boat; they simply flap in the wind. The force that the wind transfers to the sails actually makes a boat move forward for much the same reason a plane flies. If you were to look down on a sailboat from a helicopter you would see what looks like an airplane’s wing except standing on end. The air moving across the sails, like
