it depends on what kind of sailing ships you are thinking of.

Modern Maxi-yachts have logged over 40 knots sailing downwind in the Roaring Forties, surfing the huge rollers of the Southern Ocean. The Maxi Class yachts with their light-weight, composite kevlar- carbon-fibre & resin-glass hulls, and their huge sail areas, - which compete in the trans-Oceanic and Round The World races - are the fastest mono-hull sailing yachts in the world.

The large modern racing catamarans and trimarans which also compete in the trans-Oceanic and Round The World races, routinely exceed 30 knots for hours at a time.

Viking Longship replicas such as the "Sea Stallion" have reached 18 knots sailing downwind in favourable conditions due to their long, narrow, lightweight hulls. In the right conditions such hulls will also surf the waves when running or reaching before the wind. Under oars, the Sea Stallion has proved capable of reaching 5 Knots for short periods of no more than 10 to 15 minutes at a time - after which the rowers have been as temporarily exhausted as any Olympic Rower. A more usual speed for any viking ship under oars would have been around 3 knots; the oarsmen rowing more-easily could maintain that kind of speed for around 40 minutes at a time before needing relief at their rowing benches..

Coming down the size scale and looking at more-modern hull designs, I believe that the classic 10sq.M Canoe singlehander is still one of the world's fastest mono-hull racing dinghy Classes due to the righting-power gained from sliding seats in the early versions, and the trapezes more commonly in use now. Explanation - more righting-power leverage allows more sail-area, which equals more speed on any point of sailing.

And - still on the subject of racing dinghies within the budgets of ordinary folk - the 505, Flying Dutchman, Javelin, Hornet, Osprey and Fairey-Marine Jollyboat Classes - were all capable of actually planing while going to windward - where most other modern dinghy classes can only reach those "planing" speeds on a run or a quartering-reach downwind.

The Rule of thumb for the top speed of a modern mono-hull racing dinghy is that it will be unlikely to ever be able to plane faster than it's waterline length in knots. Thus theoretically - a Flying Dutchman could plane at almost 20 Knots; while a GP14 could only plane at 14 Knots.

And for the largest sailing ships of the "Great Age of Sail"? in the late-1890 to early-1900's Era of the great sailing ships, the German, steel 5-masters - the 5000grt. ship-rigged 'Preussen' [launched 1902] and the barque-rigged 'Potosi' [launched 1895] of the Hamburg-based "Laeisz Line", - are on record as having reached 18 knots and maintained that speed for hours at a time on their round trips from Europe to the Chilean Nitrate Isles and back. These great sailing ships were designed to use a Gale as a "good working breeze", being able to retain "all plain sail" when smaller vessels were forced by rising windspeeds to furl their Royals, Topgallants, and upper-Topsails, and reduce down to "lower-topsails and courses"; - and all of the steel-built "P-Line Vessels had specially strengthened rigging and sails, to make such speeds possible. The 'P-Liners' -as they were nicknamed because Laeisz christened them all with names beginning with "P......." [Pomona, Padua, Priwall, Preussen, Potosi, Parma, etc.] - were designed to compete with the late-Victorian steam cargo ships, - which in those two decades - only averaged around 9 knots.

I hope this spread of examples will be enlightening..

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