Wind Angle & Speed

[Mary.Tzu]

So a while back I was beset by a pirate corvette whilst sailing my starting lugger and I sailed with the wind to my back, the wind was about 15 knots but I was only going at 2 knots. I immediately thought something must be wrong. When I turned 90 degrees to port to deliver a broadside of chain (to escape lol) I started going way faster. 10 knots or something like that. And at that point I was just happy to escape.


I thought about it though and I had a eureka! moment. Of course, the lugger has triangular sails so it sails better at an angle to the wind. It seems, through my own experimentation that the optimal angle is indeed 90 degrees to the wind. But I wonder if this is the case with all ships rigged fore & aft? And what about square rigged ships? I imagine their speed would be at a maximum with wind at their backs but how does the speed drop off with angle, I wonder.



Finally, which is better overall? Being able to tack into the wind seems to me more valuable than speed alone. If square rigged ships can't tack at all, well that's pretty useless isn't it?

[Ferzen]

For each ship there is it's unique optimal wind angle. You can see two additional arrows that show it on radar map.