Float Your Boat!: The Evolution and Science of Sailing

by Mark Denny

An estimated 4.1 million people in the United States participate in recreational sailing. Yet the large library of sailing literature leaves many of them high and dry. On one side are technical guides for America’s Cup boat-builders; on the other, simplistic books for weekend sailors with little interest in science. In Float Your Boat! professional and amateur boaters alike will find intelligent and understandable answers to such questions What were the key innovations that made sailboats more efficient? How do you increase the speed of a boat? How do sailboats travel into the wind? Why are so many explanations of sailing so wrong?

Sailing enthusiast and physicist Mark Denny first traces the evolution of the sailing craft, from prehistoric coracles made of animal skins and antlers to the sailboat’s reinvention as a pleasure craft during the Industrial Revolution. He then identifies specific sailing phenomena—how wind drives modern Bermuda sloops, how torque determines stability, why hull speed exists—and provides the key physics principles behind them.

Whether you are an inquisitive landlubber who has never set foot in a boat, a casual weekend sailor, or an old salt who lives for the sea, Float Your Boat! is an accessible guide to the physics of sailing.

Genres: Nautical, History, Science

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 14, 2008

About the author

Started writing in 2005, after 20 years working for a living...In fact, writing is work, of course, but I mean that I like it a lot more than the 9-to-5 grind of my office job (research engineer for a multinational aerospace corporation).

Ingenium was my first book, and I guess it shows, but I still have a great fondness for it. I was approached out of the blue by the editor of Johns Hopkins University Press who had seen a bunch of my published papers on historically important machines--he thought they could form the basis of an interesting popular science book. So I wrote it; the reviews were kind. I've recently completed my tenth book.

Reviews

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll move it up to 5 stars once I have my own Baltimore Clipper or Bermuda Schooner and can apply the physics. I basically skipped the torque and hull speed chapters, but my noodle is still wrestling with equivalent wind speed and aerodynamic flux. The history chapters (1 & 3) are fairly light reading, but everything else is definitely exercise.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mr. Denny should stick to what he knows best: physics. The historical chapters of this book are not nearly as strong as those that are discussing the physics of sailing. The physics chapters for me (more of a historian than a physicist - maybe physicists would review this book differently) were much more useful and enlightening. The whole thing could use a serious round of editing, as it is annoyingly repetitive (or maybe it's just Denny's attempt at being folksy).

Also disappointed that the historical portions of this text mostly focus on larger sailing vessels, not so much on the wide variety of smaller craft.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you sail you have learned, probably without knowing it, important principles of physics. This book can tell you just what those principles are. You will learn the physics behind wave motions, hull speed, lateral stability (not capsizing), and much much more. You have to work at it, but soon you will not only obey the laws of physics, you'll understand some of them.

[Rich · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want a history of sailing and the technical background on how sailing works... look no further.