Introduction

Today we would get back a little and we are going to build a Sail ship! Our goal is to understand how to capture the power of the wind!

How do the sails of the sail ship work? What happens when the wind changes its direction?

The sails "work" because of the second law of Newton which could be summarized as: "When force is applied to a system, the system accelerates". Or put in other words "When the wind blows it pushes the sails of the ship and moves it forward".

What happens if the wind blows from one of the sides (crosswind) of the ship or even from the head (headwind)?

Probably you've heard the term "Tailwind". It is much easier for ships to move when the wind is blowing "from the tail" - which means in the direction of moving forward. If the winds blows from the sides the ship could use special sails, like the once the previous robot had. But this is tilting the ship and makes sailing more dangerous. Usually with crosswind and headwind the sails are folded and the ship waits for tailwind. To avoid waiting for wind or using special sails some ships are equipped with sails that could turn in different directions. This is what the robot today will do!