Originally posted by Ptolemy:

Tacking back and forth to either side of the wind is called beating to windward, and it doesn't work very well in this game because a. there's generally too much land everywhere, and b. you don't sail fast enough just outside the angle of the wind to make it noticeably faster than simply rowing into the wind. And you cannot do this in a small channel, regardless.

Again, another person that doesn't even read the OP. Why do you people exist?

Originally posted by WhamyKaBlamy:

It is possible to tack into the wind to make it a little faster, but it's still like twice as slow as a good wind. I don't mind the tacking, I just wish it didn't change quite so often and to such a large degree. I think it would be more fun if there were prevailing winds for fairly long periods of time, both for the sake of tacking and for pushing you to explore a certain direction more.

Edit: That's presuming a longboat, which is definitely faster to tack.

Like I said, half the time you can't even tack because the area is too small or the window for the wind throws you stupidly off course to tack the way you want to go.