Sailing

by McKenna and Riley

Here are some things about sailing that you may not know. To be able to sail you need to have strong wind. But not too strong of a wind that you flip over. Most fifth graders would sail and opti, and when you flip and opti they fill up like a bathtub.

Opti are the slowest boats and the smallest boat. The idea is to catch the wind in the sail. When you point into the wind you want to have the sail pulled into the corner of the boat, you pull the sail in by a thing called the main sheet. Sailing takes concentration and skill. There are little ribbons on your sail and you need to concentrate on them to have maximum boat speed.

When you are going upwind (into the wind) you want to have your ribbons going back not forward. When you go downwind (when you go downwind you are not going upwind.) You want to have your boat heeling over (tipped over a little bit). The less drag you have going downwind the faster you will go. Downwind is faster than upwind because you don't need to have your sail pulled in really tight.

When you go downwind you can not sit too far forward in your boat because the bow (the front) of your boat will dig down into the water and make you flip, and you go really slow when you sail is in the water. To get your boat to flop back up you swim around the other side of the boat and pull down on the daggerboard (the thing that sticks out into the water so that you do not drift) and the weight of you pulling on it will make your boat flip back over. After you flip it back over you bail and bail and bail, bailing is when you scoop water out of your boat.

Sailing is a very unique sport, and I hope this project encourages you to sail. This is McKenna and Riley signing off. Have a great day!!!