True wind and apparent wind

[Don Guillette]

Terry Cox: Assume your just sitting there, with the wind blowing over the bow. What you feel is true wind. As soon as the boat starts to move, the wind that the boat senses is now apparent wind. Incidently, the apparent wind also changes vertically as you go up the sail. That change is one of the big factors with twist. Anyway, the wind that you want to be flowing over the sails as if they were in a wind tunnel with smoke blowing over them, with the smoke attached to both sides of the sail is apparent wind. It is not possable to sail to true wind other than sailing downwind.

 

[Alan]

Don

It might be easier just to say, for the sake of clarification, that if the vessel is statioary, the wind you feel is true, if moving the wind you feel is apparent both in speed and angle.Just my 2 cents worth.