Physics of Sailing 101

[Oma Larnia]

Since a discussion popped up yesterday on battle chat about the use of square sails to get out of irons on SPD ships, I have been looking for some correlation between how the ships behave in SL to the RL sailing physics. So I found this nice little page here that has diagrams and yes, some physics terminology but I can understand!


Check it out here: The Physics of Sailing

[Malibu DuPont]

TY Oma!

[Oma Larnia]

Aye Bridget, I have the Brig, Mujer vieja (basically a brig with rustic textures) and I don't have a frigate. But aye, those all have the square sails. TSS has squares but the effect of wind into the squares was left off.

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

Aye Oma, I agree. SPD III is kedge OR backing - My preference would be to have the backing AND kedging AND turning on the SPD III

[Bridget Jennings]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't only 2 spd ships with square sails (brig and frigate). I suppose backing would work with lateen sails (have done with small craft in RL - but getting a lateen on on a 100 foot boat would not be easy)

[Oma Larnia]

GiaGirl, any SPDII ship with square sails can currently back out of irons AND kedge. Exception is TSS ships.

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

Aye - during beta test we got into the iron winds whilst we were in the canal on Tortuga. With SPD II it would have been a matter of kedging around, but with the SPD III our only option was backing up ... which meant we ran aground and caused damage to the vessel.
My preference would be to have the backing as an option to the kedging - giving us two methods of steering out of irons (well actually three, because with SPD III you can actually turn but very very slowly)

[Oma Larnia]

Nice Article GaiaGirl, Chase is planning on removing the kedging and replacing with using the squares to back sail during the Irons situation. This is already a feature of existing ships however this is something that was debated in battle chat specifically in terms of ROE and some confusion by captains who had not ever used this method to get out of irons. It works though...and the physic's page does explain a bit why it works RL.

[GaiaGirl Pearl]

This webpage will be updated later too http://www.gaiagirl.com.au/pirate/tactic.htm

[Bridget Jennings]

You found another winner Oma. Thank you.