Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 89.djvu/63

 Your Mainsail and the Wind

��100" Course

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���Photo by r..\i. k

The boom makes an angle with the boat to secure the highest possible speed

��l\N interesting and practical series of AA experiments in a field that is new to science has been made at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Professor H. A. Kverett, for the purpose of determining some of the facts about the propelling power of sails. By dint of experience and by rule of thumb certain practices are common in sailing boats. Skippers agree in the main about these practices,

��but there are individual variations from any rule. Each man maintains and asserts that his is the proper way. What Professor Everett has done is to determine scientifically certain ele- ments common to all sails witii regard to thrust or propelling power, and twist, and to estai)lish certain funda- mental principles which fix the relations of sails to direction of the wind.

In Boston Professor Everett was

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