This is an exellent example of two psychological effects and possibly some ingenious programming.

The first effect is something called negativity bias. Basically, negative events become overrepresented in our consciousness. You can view that in several ways. In any game based on open dice rolls, you'll always see threads about the AI cheating. In fact, research has shown that if 60% of events are positive, and 40% negative, the player will feel it is perfectly even. (And 90% of all statistics is made up on the spot, or 'I heard it was like that once'. This might possibly be in that category... but I have actually heard it. ;) ). End result - most players will feel like the game cheats against them a bit, even if the devs would have no reason whatsoever to do that.

It's also why many forums seem overrun by haters.... no, wait, that's because they ARE.

So, normally we want more positive than negative. The game actually provides that; the wind rose gives positive effects for a pretty large part of the possible wind directions; way more so than actual viking ships.

But here's the kicker. It's pretty normal to make a conclusion that the game is out to get you if you feel like you're getting more headwind than you should. And then something called confirmation bias kicks in. Because every time you get a headwind from that point on, you think of it as confirming your theory... .almost regardless of how often it actually happens.

It's perfectly natural to form this theory - that the game predicts your movement and gives you headwinds constantly - and conclude that it's proven right, regardless of whether it's actually true.

Of course, the game does. That's the real kicker.