Generator

Three times the wind, on a reach

Three times the wind, on a reach
Three times the wind, on a reach. The polar diagram: boat speed in every direction, as a multiple of the true wind speed, for drag angles of 14 and 6 degrees. The shaded wedge at the top is the no-go zone, whose half-angle is exactly the sum of the two drag angles. Everywhere outside about twice that angle the boat is faster than the wind, and the maximum is 2.92 times the wind at 110 degrees — which is 1/sin λ at 90° + λ, both checked.

The polar diagram: boat speed in every direction, as a multiple of the true wind speed, for drag angles of 14 and 6 degrees. The shaded wedge at the top is the no-go zone, whose half-angle is exactly the sum of the two drag angles. Everywhere outside about twice that angle the boat is faster than the wind, and the maximum is 2.92 times the wind at 110 degrees — which is 1/sin λ at 90° + λ, both checked.

4 essays call sailing-polar. The drawing above is what it returns with no arguments at all; every call below passes it something, because a placement that passes nothing draws whichever member of the family the generator happens to default to rather than the one its essay argues about.

It is also the blast radius. Changing sailing-polar changes every figure listed here at once, and on this site it may change what they assert as well as what they show — which is what has to be rebuilt and looked at before the change is believed.

Where it is called

What each of these essays asks for instead of the defaults is on the regime index, which reads the parameters back out of the finished figures rather than out of the placements.

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