Math Anxiety (newbie)

[chrisg]

I find the whole idea of sailboat design fascinating, and coming from an aviation backround, much less death defying.

I have a few books on fluid dynamics and have seen plenty written on the subject, with much of the usual hand waving etc.

My question is, if one is to design basic sailboats, ie singlehanders you might make in your garage, what advanced math would be practical to know? That is beyond trig, algebra, etc. I have a background of some advanced calc but some of these theory books look pretty serious. I don't want to spend a lot of time grunting out integrals if it's not necessary. On the other hand, I enjoy the technical side and I don't want a computer program to do all the work for me.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

[PAR]

You seem to have all the skills necessary. Anyone who has graduated college prep. high school will have the math tools needed.

[SailDesign]

PAR is right - if you can multiply by 2 and 4 (which is, after all, only multiplying by 2 twice...), and divide by 3, then you should be well on your way. Being able to balance shapes on a knife-edge helps, as well, but is not essential.
I know the above looks like I'm kidding, but it is the minimum necessary for the technical side (finding areas, volumes and centres).
The hard part is knowing what shape a boat should be. :)

Steve

[nero]

Even with dedicated CAD/Marine design software, there is plenty of non math problems to solve.

"The hard part is knowing what shape a boat should be." - SailDesign

to fully comprehend what SailDesign wrote you would already have had to design a boat. More than just hydrodynamics, art, style, wants, needs, airodynamics, engineering, material science, and on and on.

But it is fun!


... and then to build it!