Upwind performance when kayak sailing

People commonly ask " What angles can you sail in relation to the wind with a Falcon Sail ? "

The short answer is with a good sail, and decent conditions, you can easily sail more than 200 out of 360 degrees. You can make up wind progress with no paddling.

For the non geeks out there you may think this is the long winded answer, but it is educational about what you can do with just a stock hull.
With a stock kayak / with no lateral resistance enhancers such as a lee board, dagger board, center board or anything else, and you are only sailing / not paddling and you are focusing with decent conditions, you can sail 20 degrees above reaching. That is 20 degrees above going across the wind. You can make 20 degrees of up wind progress. That would be about 220 degrees ( 180 plus 20 on the port side and 20 degrees on the starboard side ) of possible angles of attack. Or 220 out of 360 possible angles of attack. You can do a little better than this, if your kayak has hull with contours for more lateral resistance. With some tacking, as is done with conventional sail boats, you can make even more up wind progress.

To give your self maximum sailing capabilities, if you paddle to keep your sail properly oriented to the wind and create some hull speed, for lateral resistance, you can gain useful propulsion to within 30 degrees of straight up wind. That gives you the possibility of useful propulsion on 300 out of 360 degrees if you are paddling.

In the video below, a kayak sailor with a Falcon Sail was easily going 10 to 20 degrees above reaching with a stock kayak hull and
a 1.0 square meter Falcon Sail. The Jackson Journey is a very nice kayak, but it has a rounded hull that does will not generate as much lateral resistance most other kayaks do. Most kayaks are a little more capable of up wind performance. But still the best kayak for kayak sailing is the kayak you like with or without a sail. With a good sail, your kayak will do great.

You can custom design your Falcon Sail and order a complete rigging kit for you kayak as well at our on line store.
www.falconsails.com/store

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