On Jan 3, 8:29 pm, "Capt. JG" wrote:
... My understanding is that the point of the drouge is to slow down enough so
that you don't run into the back of the wave in front of you. Perhaps you
said that.... Just thinking out loud. ...

There's no harm in catching up with the wave in front of you per se
(though it gets harder to do as the waves get bigger and faster). The
problem is that when the boat is in a trough, independently of how it
got there, the back of the boat may want to catch up with the front of
the boat and that can cause a broach. Adding a bit of drag to the
back and keeping the pull forward helps prevent this.

-- Tom.