With clear air, you’ll have superior boat speed, along with the opportunity to respond to any wind shift…  Championship Tactics, by Gary Jobson and Tom Whidden

Clear Air Upwind – Don’t Settle for Less

Try to sail near a champion sailor on the race course and he or she will probably react – either with some choice words for you, or by altering course. Champions don’t like to sail in dirty air. The rest of us are too willing to stay in bad situations.

In the SailZing video below, we’ve collected the best advice about clear air upwind from books and online resources to help you recognize:

• Sources of disturbed air
• Typical upwind trouble spots
• How to get and keep clear air
• When to consider living in bad air

The related content links provide a wealth of additional information.

This post doesn’t address downwind sailing. We’ll cover that separately.

Sailing Breezes article on clear air by Dave Dellenbaugh
The Tactic of Sailboat Racing – some nice animations of tactics to maintain clear air
WB Sails – video showing disturbed air behind a boat sailing upwind – very revealing
SailZing: Starting Line – Accelerating and Clear Air