We'd be racing in different directions. ;) The answer of which tack is fastest could be closed in on using 2 identical sailboats with GPS starting in roughly the same position and heading off on their different tacks, but to account for wind being different in different places, the two boats would need to race over and over again... I think at least a thousand times.
Occurs to me the water itself at times has speed, and will also be different in different places and times. So it's harder than I imagined to figure it out.
fwiw I've sailed craft that will make 20 knots sailing almost directly into a 10 knot wind, and 30 knots in a 15 knot wind. Gotta love multihulls.
You have not sailed anything that will make 20 knots almost directly into a 10 knot wind. You may well have sailed a multihull that makes 20 knots on a reach or broad reach with a 10 knot wind. And when it did that the apparent wind would be at best 20 degrees off the bow.
I have indeed sailed 20kt close-hauled into a 10kt wind, and I don't believe the feat is all that incredible. But incredibly, I was on the crew that built the 35' racing cat (iirc John Marples' open salon design) that doubles wind speed (depending on conditions) in nearly any tack. Took 2 years (all wood hulls plus glass and snot), and I consider it a sabbatical from sysadmining. I was in the best shape of my life due to manually longboarding the hulls 5 days a week, fulltime, for 3 months straight, because I really had no shop skills, still don't. But I learned to screw, glass and snot, and bump and grind, and I especially learned how to longboard a hull. I already knew how to sail. Used to swim like a fish, but discovered during those 2 years that I had forgotten how to swim, and I nearly drown in the marina trying to swim across it. Maybe it was because when I learned to swim I was a little chubby, not much, but when I attempted that, idk, 150 yard swim across the marina... and back after a rest (getting back in after nearly drowning was about impossible, but there was no other way back), I did not have an ounce of fat on me, so I had to work a lot harder to keep my head above water. Scariest thing ever, the rational concern that I might drown for being an idiot.
Thinking more about it, water also moves a boat. Imagine a fast river flowing right into the wind, and you can sail a boat without sails at 20kt into a 10kt wind, that is, if the water is moving at 20kt. But that is a cheat, so all I can do is reassure you that a racing multihull can gracefully move into the wind on calmish water twice as fast as the wind itself.
We'd be racing in different directions. ;) The answer of which tack is fastest could be closed in on using 2 identical sailboats with GPS starting in roughly the same position and heading off on their different tacks, but to account for wind being different in different places, the two boats would need to race over and over again... I think at least a thousand times.
Occurs to me the water itself at times has speed, and will also be different in different places and times. So it's harder than I imagined to figure it out.
fwiw I've sailed craft that will make 20 knots sailing almost directly into a 10 knot wind, and 30 knots in a 15 knot wind. Gotta love multihulls.