A Refinement of the Method Used to Determine the Balance of a Sailing Vessel During the Design Phase, with Application to Sail Design and Subsequent Sail Selection and Sailing Operations

The thrust of this paper is, first, to attempt to define the relationship between the individual sails, both together and separately, and the hull with somewhat more precision, and secondly, to develop a calculation tool to better establish this relationship, and to better anticipate the vessel's over all sailing behavior. Because of those factors that effect balance including and beyond those addressed by the traditional design approach as taught by most current texts on sailboat balance, the need for the factor "lead" will never go away. However, by including, as will be demonstrated, an additional balance factor, specifically the longitudinal sheet positions, into the balance equations during the design phase, sailboat balance can be predicted with better accuracy. The primary objective of this refinement will be the ability to design sail profiles, especially the complement of headsails, which will result in the least (adverse) change of balance when changing from one headsail to nother, and which can be applied to either new designs, or to existing boats in need of out-of-balance remedies. This would mean that each anticipated sail combination can be analyzed for its lead, and therefore adjusted during the design phase to insure that proper helm is maintained from one combination to the next.