Can Meteorology win races?

Well .... that is very interesting.

I guess as sailors we look to "experts" for advice ...

As with any field there are a range of "experts" and you have to decide which expert you believe and which you don't.

So ... I guess if someone has been selected by the most successful olympic sports team of all time (GBR sailing) then I have to assume they are worth listening to ...

Are you saying that there is nothing in this book that can be backed by research?

Well perhaps experience is worth more in some cases ....

Rick, Stefan

Thanks for such prompt and interesting answers.

Rick, I take your point about choosing between experts. It is difficult, in a sense your experts are chosen for you, eg by the RYA, publishers, magazine editors etc.

To answer your questions, I'm not saying the whole book (I assume you mean 'Wind Strategy') lacks research backing. I recall it is quite wide ranging and some of it may well be valid. I am however saying that for much of it there is not only no research backing it, but in fact a good deal of research proving it false.

I also appreciate your comments on experience and relying on affiliation to yachting team. The problem with this is the contradictions. For example Stefan is correct when he says Bethwaite has research showing that the 'veers in gusts' idea doesn't work. Similarly as regards offshore wind bends, Ian Saltonstall in the 'RYA Manual of Race Training' talks about the wind trying to cross the coast at right angles (a popular idea) and I recall that Stuart Walker (a top US coach and, I think, Star class silver medallist) is sceptical that these bends can be relied upon except in special circumstances. Since all these guys have a huge amount of experience and cannot all be right it follows that it is possible to have a lot of sailing experience at the highest level without knowing how wind behaves, otherwise these guys at least would agree.

Just so I am clear though, do you think you can tell when you are sailing if the wind veers in gusts or not, or if offshore wind always goes right away from the shore?

If you can tell, in your opinion, which world class coach do you think is wrong? Based on the meteorological literature I'm actually quite confident in saying many of them are wrong.

I wonder how much of this so called expert advice is based on local effects, ie as these experts tend to sail in the same place most of the time (south coast for UK guys) they simply transpose there observations to 'it must happen everywhere'. 

Also as most of the guys offering this advice are damn good sailors it becomes a self fufilling prophecy; I think it's true I keep winning therefore everyone else thinks it's true! 

Finally there's the psychological effects.  I believe it's right I worry less about it so I focus on my sailing and 'hey presto' I sail better.

I suppose the only real data from the sailing world which would be worth looking at is that gathered by the Americas Cup teams and possible by the bigger countries Olympic support teams.  Do you think they'll give the Met office all their empirical data for analysis and allow the results to be published in a scientific journal?

"Wind trying to cross coast at right angles". From my windsurfing days, when this would have been quite noticeable, I can't I recall any systematic wind bends within a mile of the beach.

"Systematic veer in gusts": I spent some time monitoring this when I first read it and no, I don't believe it.

I think an awful lot of this stuff comes from analysis of what "ought" to be true from some plausible physical explanation, rather than any systematic observation of what actually happens. 

The people who really have the capability and budgets for this kind of observational research are the AC teams, who don't share or publicise their results.