Primitive Benchmark : A Short Treatise on a General Theory of Sailing with the Limits for Sailboat Speed

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Summary: Sailing by the numbers
Review: If you are fascinated by the quest to mathematically model the various movements of a modern sailing yacht, or, if you ever wondered if there was an enigmatic way to solve six simultaneous equations then this is the book for you. The author derives a method for determining the speed potential of almost any sailboat and shows that his method produces the same results as classical methods and furthermore, his predicted speeds are in agreement with observations taken on at least two actual sail boats. For the average recreational or racing sailor there is very little of value in this book primarily because the author assumes a great deal of mathematical sophistication on the part of the reader, and fails to show what insights (if any) accrue from his methodology. Yacht designers may find this work usefull as a rough estimator of speed of proposed designs but beyond that the value of this work is murkey at best.