SailMaster - September 2009 Issue
Welcome to the
September Issue of SailMaster - StartedSailing.com's Monthly Ezine, filled with information on tips, tricks, techniques to improve your sailing as well as stories and my experiences this month!
Welcome to our new subscribers! We welcome you and look forward to you being a part of our growing sailing community!
If you like this Ezine, please 'pay it forward'. Pass it along to a friend or family member who is interested in Sailing/Boating/Yachting. They will thank you for it! To pass it on just email them and ask them to look at "https://www.startedsailing.com/sailmaster-150909.html".
If a friend forwarded this to you, and you like what you read, please subscribe by visiting..."https://www.startedsailing.com/ezine.html".
Best Regards
Alex Dotsch
In This Issue...
If you don't have time to read the whole ezine, click on the topic that interests you. This month you will find:
Editor's Note
Thank you for reading the September Issue of SailMaster.
Well I am now back at school for my final year and so I will be updating the website less often due to work committments. However if you haven't already seen the new forum, I would implore you to join and continue the conversation.
We already have 16 members and over 190 posts in the week or so it has been up, so I can already see it will become very successful.
I am also planning on building a MAJOR extension to the website, which will take up the majority of my time and will be live in February. I will release details in the coming issues of this newsletter.
I hope you have all enjoyed sailing over the holidays and would like to learn more techniques so that you can do better next year.
I am always looking for ways to improve the site. If you see any errors or would like to contribute in any way, please contact me!
Till Next Month,
Alex Dotsch
Exclusive Article - How Close Can You Sail To The Wind?
A few weeks ago, someone sent me a question from Ask the Expert, from a woman who was studying at MIT, Boston. I was intrigued with the fact that someone from MIT had contacted me, with a question (you can imagine how thrilled I was).
This was what the question said:
From your experience, how close to the wind can a 420 sail. Is the angle less than 30 degrees? What is the closest angle from head on at which the boat can reliably move.
Many thanks, Sarah Weiss
You can see the question and my answer on this page: https://www.startedsailing.com/close-to-the-wind.html
I know quite a lot about the physics behind sailing and have even set up an Aero Society (planes, sailboats, etc) at school, to promote my interest in aerodynamics. So I answered this question to the best of my ability.
But I wanted to know if this was true in practice and so I decided that for my A level physics coursework, I would investigate this topic. I have yet to start it and so will give you a brief description of what I plan to do.
I will use a model boat (that I will make myself) and attach it to two pieces of string that will be held in place by stands. The boat will be placed in a tank of water and I will use a fan to take the place of the wind (so I can also control the speed).
I will then change the angle of the boat to the wind and the wind speed to find the optimum and most efficient angle and wind speed for a boat to sail in as well as how close a boat can actually get to the wind and still generate some aerodynamic lift.
I will then quantify this by taking the angle of the heel on the boat caused by the sails.
In the next issue, I will have completed this experiment and will be able to show my results.
Funny Of The Month
Hungry? These guys look like they are enjoying their rope spaghetti!
New Pages on The Website
There are so many that I could not list them all here! But here are a few of my favourites:
Boating
Knots - Completely rebuilt the boating knots part of the website and their
are now step by step images to help
Sailing
in Greece - The two best places that I have sailed in are both Greece and this
page details my experiences
See all the rest at my Started Sailing Blog!
New Community Tools on The Website
The new and on course to become number 1 international dinghy sailing forums that are already becoming popular. There aren't very many out there if any, so if you want a place to talk about casual sailing, you have come to the right place.
Sign up now at http://forums.startedsailing.com/
And of course continue to promote Started Sailing by word of mouth, linking to it if you have a website and by posting articles or forum posts. Everything counts to making this a better website and helps the dinghy sailing community as a whole improve.
Thanks in advance!
Thank you for reading the September Issue of SailMaster! I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it! Please feel free to contact me with any questions about this issue.
If you enjoyed this issue of SailMaster, please feel free to send it to any friends or family and ask them to subscribe on my website.
Best Regards
Alex Dotsch
www.startedsailing.com
PS. Want to check out back issues of the SailMaster? - Click Here
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