Your understanding of depowering with kites should help you to understand another aspect with the solid wing.Notice how when on land at the upper range of your kite even when sheeted out its still pulling even at zenith.
There is whole-nother upper wind range in the solid wing sail design as wind speed increases the sail is over sheeted with out loss of performance in windward work in the upper wind range. As long as aspect ratio's and camber are kept within reason.
Todd
--- In harryproa@yahoogroups.com.au, Mike Crawford <mcrawf@...> wrote:
>
> Todd,
>
> That makes sense.
>
> As Rick says, the force due to lift is a lot higher than the force due
> to drag, and it's highest when the boat is creating loads of apparent
> wind. So the non-lift position, when the boat is at rest during a
> shunt, would be the lowest force.
>
> If you can put the wing in neutral by over-sheeting, which is what I
> think you're saying, then the rig isn't nearly as worrisome as I
> feared. That will allow the boat to stop before flipping the wing, and
> once stopped, the flip should generally be benign.
>
> Thanks for the explanation.