Positioning Conservatively When Sailing Upwind (Wind Shift Strategy Tip #2) 

Glad they help :)

I'm glad you enjoy the videos. Interesting question. If you had a boat tack 100 times for example (so they were always not the centreline of the course) then they would be like a swimmer. A swimmer who swims in a straight line to the windward mark will get there quicker than the swimmer who swims out to the layline then to the mark. However, we aren't talking about swimmers. The boat that tacks 100 times on the centerline would create a wiggly line (rather than a straight line the swimmer would swim). Naturally, the wiggly line will be longer when pulled straight than the swimmer's straight line. Therefore, the true test would be to lay out some string on an imaginary race course and adjust it to the path of the boat that takes 10 tacks and the boat that just takes one. Then cut each piece of string when they get to the imaginary windward mark. Then pull the two pieces of string tight and see which is longer. My guess would be there would be no difference but there could be something I have not considered. Lines in powerpoint may prove a better method than the string due to the difficulty of adjusting the "tacks" in the string. I will give it a go and report back.

Right, so using powerpoint I drew some lines to test this. I did 7 tacks vs 1 (just how it turned out). But should demonstrate the point just as well. So the result was that many tacks is about 2.5% slower. This is such a small amount that it could be created by the errors of my imperfect experiment. I drew the tacks at 90 degree angles. However no one tacks instantly. The boat spends some time in the tack pointing at or almost at the mark as the bow swings through the wind. All this time spent pointing almost straight at the mark actually reduces the distance she has to sail. So if I had to choose I would choose to do the 10 tacks rather than the 1 tack. To be clear to others reading this- this is only in the very theoretical scenario when there are no shifts and tacks don't slow you down. Hope that makes sense. Let me know if it doesn't.

@@FastForwardSailing Makes complete sense. You've confirmed what I previously thought. So tacking upwind is all about other factors like wind direction, pressure, fleet racing and reducing leverage And not because it's "faster to sail like a straight line to the top mark". And if there were none of those other factors, you'd reach the top mark at *about the same time.

@@eck0hcobra15 Yup, I'd say so. My only caveat is that in a light-medium breeze you may be able to come out of tacks faster than you go (although not legally) so more tacks should be an advantage in that case.

If one boat goes fast almost the entire time and the other boat is constantly slowing down, who is faster? haha, just being vainglorious

I'm hopeful it will get better from now on now we have the medal races. Frustrating though