GL: Free surfing

[LRZeitlin at aol.com]

In a message dated 6/25/08 12:00:23 AM, Jeremy writes:


> Here's one suggestion, that provides minimal fuel saving, but a small 
> measure of revenge:
> When some yahoo insists on passing me at speed and generating a large wake,
> instead of turning INTO the wake, whenever safe I turn AWAY from it and
> 'surf' down the wake as long as I can.
>
It's a good trick. A couple of days ago, I surfed the bow wave of a tug
pulling an unloaded barge down the Hudson for a couple of miles. My tubby
trawler
was about two hundred yards off his port bow, clearly out of the danger zone,
but the wave was still big enough to give me an appreciable speed boost.

Incidentally, 200 years ago the 90 ft. Hudson River sloops often made
appreciable progress up and down river in unfavorable winds by riding the
tides. The
Hudson has a strong tidal flow, the current reversing every 6 hours. The
average tidal flow is almost 2 knots. The sloops would ride the favorable tide
in
the direction they wanted to go, then anchor and wait for the next favorable
tide. Since the riverside towns are about 10 miles apart, they could make
reasonable progress from town to town even in dead calm conditions.

Larry Z



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