Sailboats are exciting, carefree, and exhilarating for people… especially kids! It is pretty simple to explain to kids how a sailboat sails when going downwind. When you let the sails out as far as they will go and the wind pushes on them and the boats hull follows along. The secret to it all is air pressure. When a sail is angled into the wind it curves, some of the air in the wind streams along the inside of the sail (the windward side) and some air streams along the curved outside of the sail (the leeward side). The air traveling along the leeward side has a longer way to go than the air on the windward side, so it has to go faster and thinner. That means the air pressure is higher on the leeward side. The result is a force that pushes the boat a little bit forward but mostly sideways.
If that were the whole story, a sailboat would keep slipping sideways and never get anywhere. But boats have rudders and either a keel or centerboard, which resist the slipping resulting in a boat that is given a thrust moving more forward than sideways.
Typical sailboats can sail into the wind at an angle of 45 degrees or so. Enjoy these sporting sailboat coloring pages for kids and have fun while imagining you are on the starboard of a boat cruising across the sea line.
