Sailing faster than the wind

High-performance sailing is achieved with low forward surface resistance—encountered by catamarans, sailing hydrofoils, iceboats or land sailing craft—as the sailing craft obtains motive power with its sails or aerofoils at speeds that are often faster than the wind.

High-performance watercraft that can exceed the velocity of the true wind include catamarans and foiling vessels. Ice boats and land-sailing craft are often able to do so. There are also rotor-driven craft, such as the "land yacht", Blackbird, which are outside the scope of this article.

In 2013, a new class of catamaran was announced for the America's Cup which can achieve well in excess of double the speed of the wind. The catamarans used for the 2013 America's Cup were expected to sail upwind at 1.2 times the speed of the true wind, and downwind at 1.6 times the speed of the true wind. They proved to be faster, averaging about 1.8 times the speed of the wind with peaks slightly over 2.0.

The Extreme 40 catamaran can sail at 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) in 20–25-knot (37–46 km/h; 23–29 mph) winds. The high-performance International C-Class Catamaran can sail at twice the speed of the wind.

In 2009, the world speed sailing record on water was set by a hydrofoil trimaran sailing at 1.71 times the speed of the wind. In late 2012 the Vestas Sailrocket 2 skippered by Paul Larsen achieved a new outright world speed record of 65.45 knots on water, at around 2.5 times the speed of the wind.

Iceboats can typically sail at five times the speed of the wind.

By sailing downwind at 135 degrees off the wind, a sand yacht can sail much faster than the wind. The velocity made good downwind is often over twice as fast compared to the same land yacht sailing directly downwind. In 2009, the world land speed record for a wind-powered vehicle was set by the sand yacht Greenbird sailing at about three times the speed of the wind.

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Wikipedia