Ellen MacArthur wrote:
"Jeff" wrote
| Let me say this again: The current has NO affect. If the boats were
| out of sight of land and had no GPS (or other such instruments) they
| would be unable to even detect the current. If there is a 20 knot
| wind from the North, and a 5 knot current running South, all the
| sailor knows is that there is a 15 knot breeze.


Oh fooey! This is getting hopeless..

No, this is the most fun I've had since Jaxashby disappeared.


Jeff, your just wrong!
Oh No!

Your in irons.
OK

Your not going foward.
If there was a current I might never have been going forward. Think
about it.


The wind's pushing you backwards.

Backwards over the ground or through the water? If its over the
ground, how would I know? If its through the water, then the rudder
works!

The sail is banging around in the middle of the boat.
enough of the drama ...


If there's no current water will be going by you from back to front. The rudder
will work

Yes, I'm glad you understand this.

but opposite of how it usually works.

That depends how you look at it.

In this case there's a current going the same direction as the wind and
about the same speed.
Ahhh! We have a problem here. If the wind and the current is the
same speed and direction, then the boat (and all other boats in the
vicinity) feel no wind - it will effectively be flat calm, and the
alleged collision could not happen.

However, you stated there was both a strong wind and a strong current.
To my way of thinking, a strong current is between 3 and 6 knots,
beyond that would be extremely strong and only rarely encountered by
most sailors. However, a strong wind would be at least 15 knots, and
many would consider that pretty wimpy. If the "strong current" was 5
knots, and the "strong wind" was 20, this would be indistinguishable
from 15 knots of wind with no current.

Your going backwards and the water is going backwards
at the same speed. The rudder has no motion through the water.

No. This point is the identical to (and indistinguishable from) the
point where with no current, you stopped moving forwards. Immediately
following that, you start moving backwards, assuming the wind is
stronger than the current.

It won't work.
I can't see why you keep talking about land. It's got nothing to do with
land. Only wind, current and water.

It is only by looking at the land that you can tell there is a
current. If this concept illudes you, consider reading any physics
text written in the last 400 years, starting with Galileo's Theory of
Relativity.