How to Sail Upwind

Sailing upwind requires a careful balance between maintaining speed without veering to far from your course. The rush of apparent wind, the pitch of the boat as it rolls over waves and the constant tacking all make upwind sailing a thrilling challenge. To maximize your upwind sailing follow these steps.

Instructions

1. Head up and sheet in. To begin your upward sail you need to head up to the wind by steering the nose of the boat towards the wind direction. As you do so, the sails on your boat will start to luff. Slowly sheet in the sail until they are taut and filled. Use the telltales on each of the sails to finely trim the sails until the telltales are flying back smoothly.

2. Get a greater angle on the wind. The design of each boat, the particular sailset and the weather conditions determine how close you can sail to the wind. Most boats can sail somewhere in the vicinity of a 45 degree angle to the wind. Keep heading up and sheeting in. Eventually you will get to a point where you nose too far into the wind and your sails luff. When this happens, fall off slightly and maintain your course.

3. Reduce your heel. Even in moderate winds, many boats will heel up (or lean) on one side on an upwind point of sail. The heeling reduces the drag of the hull in the water but it also reduce the amount of sail surface area available to the wind. So, get crew to sit on the up side to try to balance out the heel a little.

4. Start beating. If your course is within 45 degrees in either direction of the wind then you will need to start beating, or tacking from side to side, in order to approximate your course. This does mean that you need to sail as much as 50 percent more distance to get to your upwind destination, but it's unavoidable. Make a tacking plan so you know where it's most advantageous for each to perform each tack.