Physiology of boardsailing

[windswell]

While looking for info on how to heal a shoulder injured while grindings a sailboat winch much too hard for my 60 yr old body, I came across this and thought it was worth a chuckle. My Vo2 rates are considerably less, I expect.

Physiology of boardsailing
Using a portable metabolimeter, Vogiatzis et al70 studied the physiological responses of pumping the sail. Downwind legs resulted in mean Vo2 of 50.0 (8.6) ml/min/kg (77 (% of Vo2max) and HR of 170 (12) beats/min (87 (% of HRmax); results for upwind legs were 46.3 ml/min/kg and 165 (12) beats/min. Although pumping downwind resulted in higher Vo2 and HR, upwind pumping produced higher values for the respiratory exchange ratio and the ventilatory equivalents of oxygen and carbon dioxide. The difference was felt to lie in the techniques used; downwind pumping uses motion from the entire body, whereas upwind pumping is more restrained.

70. Vogiatzis I, De Vito G, Marchetti M. The physiological responses of upwind versus downwind sail pumping on Olympic level windsurfers. In: Legg SJ, ed. Human performance in sailing conference proceedings: incorporating the 4th European Conference on Sailing Sports Science and Sports Medicine and the 3rd Australian Sailing Science Conference. Palmerston North, New Zealand: Massey University, 2003. 82–86.86