Can Meteorology win races?

I've pointed out this forum to Houghton and Campbell, let's see if they turn up.

I didn't see any evidence for wind crossing the coast more nearly at right angles in Orr et al. and I'm not aware of any evidence for this or a convincing mechanism. It's certainly a common idea though. I recall speaking to a successful Finn sailor many years ago who had written about this in one of his books (why does every expert yachtsman think they are an expert meteorologist? I don't see many meteorologists laying down the law on sail trim or interpreting the race rules). It turned out he had experienced wind crossing the coast perpendicular at one event, once. He was quite happy to change his views. This is something that would be easy enough to prove so I suggest the onus of proof is on its supporters.

As regards convergence and stronger wind, strictly speaking convergence just means more air going into a region than leaving it. This is looking in two dimensions so convergence tends to be associated with ascending air (otherwise the air just squeezes up which it has a limited capability of). There is no fundamental reason to expect either convergence or divergence to automatically be associated with an increase in wind. However I would myself expect the kind of along coast convergence discussed by HandC to result in stronger wind. I'm sceptical about their rules for forecasting it though and I doubt it works as they describe on the sort of scales they describe.

As regards the documents I mentioned, I'm afraid I don't think they are available on line, the older one by Francis may not have been produced in e-form at all, but hopefully a major library could get you copies. Full references are as follows which might help.

Francis, P.E. (1970). The effect of changes of atmospheric stability and surface roughness on offshore winds over the East Coast of Britain. Meteo. Mag. 99, pp. 130-137.

Doran, J.C.,Gryning, S.-E. Joffre, S. (1987) The Oresund experiment - wind and temperature structure over a land-water-land area. Boundary-Layer Meteorology, VOL. 41 NO. 1-4, 1987, pp. 309-318.

If you're also interested in convergence you might want to look at one of mine: -

Brettle, M.J. (1989). Sea temperatures and coastal winds.Weather 44 no.6. 249-256.

Thanks for the link to the other forum. Its good to see these things discussed, again, as you imply the 'gurus' themselves are conspicuous by their absence.

Thanks, interesting but I've seen this paper before. 

Even if this work did support Houghton and Campbell it would be irrelevent because offshore winds bending the 'wrong way' are measured by professionals pretty much as often as those going the 'right way'.

If you want to look at some more research go to the UK National Met Library via the UK Met O website. You will find a lot of research contradicting H and C and non by them, or anyone else, in support. A good one to look for is by PE Francis in 1970 who looked at a decade of offshore winds on the East Coast of the UK, roughly as many went left as right. Also use the search engine to find Gryning et al 'The Oresund experiment'. This was a major study of wind passing land-sea boundaries on the Danish coast, lots of balloons, data buoys etc. Again H and C are just plain wrong. There are more.

As regards your article, the authors talk about different mechanisms pushing the wind different ways. Right at the beginning Fig 1 shows an onshore wind (wrong way for us but the physics is the same in reverse) with it bending either way according to the mechanism that dominates. They are also talking about scales much larger than those H and C refer to, typically 10s of kilometres.

I've met David Houghton many times (he was personnel manager in the Met Office 25 or so years ago and he actually recruited me). For what it is worth I'll e-mail him, and Fiona C, pointing out this forum and see if they can be bothered to make their case.

I'll lend you an Oppy Isa.

Well looking at the meteorology for this coming Sunday, (2nd December), I'm glad I'm not in the boat insurance game. It looks a tab breezy down my way.

The latest edition I have is 1996 which has a photo of an upturned 49er at the back.  The earlier edition (1993?) doesn't have this.  The current copy has a new cover, but I think the content is the as per 1996.  Whilst it is, IMHO, the best book on dinghy design and sailing published (where's your book 249?!), it is outdated, factually incorrect and a bit self-centered in some areas.