~^ beancounter ~^ wrote:
so, question...what sailboat is most
effecient (overall) for sailing upwind?

i guess measured by ground track, or
a gps benchmark?


By racing them, of course

Matt O'Toole wrote:
Among monohulls, undoubtedly an America's Cup boat, but fast multis may do
better.


It takes a pretty fast multi to better an America's Cup
Class boat's VMG upwind, they get about 80% true wind speed.
I dunno if one of the new canting-keel superboats would do
it. But it depends on conditions, too. Light air and
relatively flat water? No question an IACC boat would romp
away from anything else. That's what they're bred for, and
they are very very highly bred. But once things get exciting
it's more an open debate. A lot depends on the sailor(s)
too... beasts of this nature tend to be fragile (actually
they're not at all fragile, it's just the massive amounts of
horsepower they generate make them easy to break) and any
boat with a broken mast or foil will be slower than one intact.

Fresh Breezes- Doug King