There are many ways to describe the forces around sails — in fact, around any foil. One of the most straightforward ways is to split the forces into lift and drag. The lift force is, by definition, ...

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in ...

It seems intuitive that sailboats, powered only by the wind, can travel easily with the wind at their backs, but it may seem impossible that they turn around and come home again, with the wind blowing ...

The Courant Institute's Christiana Mavroyiakoumou, above at Central Park's Conservatory Water, and the University of Michigan's Silas Alben studied how sails behave during a wide range of tacking ...