Paradox Pair #29: Tacking & Course-setting

Sailboats harness the power of the wind to move. When the winds are favorable a sailor can set a straight-forward course. However the wind doesn't always cooperate. Sometimes a desired destination lies upwind in a place no sailing vessel can move to directly. In this case, a helmsman will need to use a special sailing maneuver referred to as tacking. During tacking the bow of the boat will alternate between sides of the direct wind direction as the sail catches the wind and brings the boat about. The boat will repeatedly cut across the wind in a zig-zag course until it reaches it's destination.

In our work a straight course is often desired too, yet circumstances may require us to take a more indirect route to reach our goal. Tacking doesn't change the end goal, it adjusts our course to get there. When we hit an obstacle we don't see it as a failure. Instead we find an alternative solution that allows us to move around the bottleneck and allows us to keep our goal in play. In complicated projects, with numerous variables and plenty of uncertainty, our initial plan of action may not survive the first attempt to implement it. Granting ourselves the option to tack can allow us to preserve the final destination even if our methods to get there need adjustment. While the shortest distance remains a straight-line, the quickest path may require us to borrow a little knowledge from sailing.

Jibing

In sail boat racing it is common to see a boat take a downwind zig-zag course, called jibing. While jibing the sail acts more like a wing than a parachute. In this way the boat's speed will be greater than running straight downwind and the extra distance travelled from the zig-zag is made up by the increased speed. We see this in our work too. Often we find some existing knowledge or prior work can quickly advance us forward versus creating from scratch. This is one major benefit of open-source, allowing us to leverage the deep knowledge and expertise of those outside our organizations.

Jibing. Wind shown in red. ① Broad reaching on port tack. "Prepare to jibe!" ② Bearing away, or turning downwind, and hauling in the sail(s) to begin the jibing maneuver. "Bearing away!" ③ Heading downwind, the wind catches the other side of the sail and it jibes, then is quickly let out to its new position. "Jibe-ho!" ④ Steadying up on the new tack. ⑤ Broad reaching on starboard tack.

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