Can a sailing ship move faster than wind speed?

The sailboat will not go faster than a tail wind, because the nearer the speed of the ship approaches the speed of the wind, the weaker the wind fills the sails. But on a course perpendicular to the wind, the air pressure on an obliquely set sail depends little on the speed, and the yacht can travel faster than the wind. True, as the speed increases, water resistance increases. In order to reduce the resistance, different designs of sailboats are created, in which, during acceleration, the body is pushed out of the water. For example, a group of French engineers created the Hydroptere sailboat in order to show the excellent prospects of sailing boats on the water. This sailboat can accelerate to a speed of 55.5 knots, which is 103 kilometers per hour. At the same time she does not float on the water, but hovers over it. The faster the Hydroptere sails, the higher it rises above the surface of the hydrofoil. As a result, the area of ​​contact of the hull with water is reduced to a minimum of 2 square meters.

More recent boats such as the International C-Class Catamaran can sail at twice the speed of the wind and the recent Americas Cup saw speeds of close to thrice the wind speed.