Sailing Angles

[Dan Dickison]

What is the difference between sailing in a beam-reach position and in a far-reach position? And which is the fastest point of sail?

Dan Dickison responds:

Thanks for your question. A beam reach is the term used to designate the point of sail where the wind is coming from 90 degrees aft of the boat's heading. The term "far reach" is probably unfamiliar to most sailors, in fact I didn't know about it until recently. Anyway, a far reach occurs whe boat is moving faster than the speed of the wind. 

The answer to the second part of your question requires a qualifier. The fastest point of sail for most monohulls is a beam reach to a broad reach. However, I just interviewed a fellow who built a 41-foot custom monohull where the beam on the boat was carried so far aft that the boat's best point of sail was a close reach.

Now performance multihulls like beach cats and those monster machines that just finished The Race (Club Med and Innovation Explorer) and iceboats go fastest anywhere from a close reach to a beat. These boats are able to go so fast that the apparent wind just moves more and more forward the faster they go, causing them to sheet even tighter all the time. Now on some vessels, a felucca for instance (the kind of traditional boats you find on the Nile River in Egypt), have a unique sail plan that allows it to go the fastest when it’s headed dead downwind. So you can see that the fastest point of sail really depends on the type of boat.