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"The Shadow Realm", Chapter 9

"I think it's a good bet," Tarrin said in agreement with Allia. "The wind has been blowing from the same direction for two days now, like she said. And since it's been coming from straight ahead, no ship moving with sails could keep moving forward in it."

And nobody corrected his error? Ship full of experienced Wikuni sailors? Never heard of sailing against the wind, about tacking (naut.)?

Chay Blyth has sailed non stop, alone, "wrong way" against the prevailing strong winds, all around the world in steel yacht "British Steel". Read his story in his book "Impossible Dream".

I know the sailing against the wind is much slower and tedious...

Checked the name at last...

I don't know about slower, actually. In my physics class we had to do some calculations which proved it can be faster to sail into the wind at an angle than to have a tailwind! Reason being the angles of force and how they added together and how it changes over time. Well, it was a long time ago, so I don't remember all the details.

Post that in the errors thread too, if you haven't already, so Fel can keep track of it.

The problem for a asil ship, very hard problem, would be going through the end of the wind. Maybe with little magic...

but there was a void after the wind in which magic was not available

intereo_cordis wrote:but there was a void after the wind in which magic was not available

Yes, but this void (magic' void) has ended before the end/start of the (up)wind. So the ship propagated only by magic is out, but using a little magic to go thry this really strong upwind (in one place blowing down) is I think possible.

Sailing against the wind (crossing, first steering a bit left to the direction the wind is coming from, then doing the same to the right, at an angle of may be 45, more or less, depending on the ship) should be possible, but (much) slower and IIRC Tarrin had to match a precise timeframe to successfully complete the jouney.

Following the prophecy that said to use a ship powered by coal sounds like a good idea to me.

That's true... Everyone was working on a very tight timeline, and it would take longer to zigzag their way through the wind.