Account for paddling into the wind, and having it behind you

[NathanSkene]

Accounting for wind effect is tricky.

Here's a table from ChatGPT....

Wind/Direction 0° 12° 24° 36° 48° 60° 72° 84° 96° 108° 120° 132° 144° 156° 168° 180°
Beaufort 0 0.95 1.05 1.16 1.27 1.38 1.50 1.62 1.74 1.74 1.62 1.50 1.38 1.27 1.16 1.05 0.95
Beaufort 1 1.35 1.49 1.60 1.70 1.76 1.80 1.82 1.81 1.67 1.43 1.22 1.04 0.90 0.78 0.69 0.61
Beaufort 2 3.92 4.26 4.38 4.28 3.96 3.45 2.82 2.14 1.38 0.75 0.35 0.13 0.03 0.00 0.00 0.00
Beaufort 3 9.70 10.45 10.49 9.80 8.45 6.61 4.57 2.63 1.03 0.16 0.02 0.31 0.77 1.19 1.40 1.37
Beaufort 4 19.70 21.12 20.94 19.10 15.81 11.58 7.13 3.28 0.68 0.02 0.91 2.64 4.49 5.88 6.48 6.22
Beaufort 5 36.16 38.67 38.04 34.16 27.55 19.30 10.94 4.13 0.37 0.59 3.79 8.41 12.92 16.13 17.39 16.55

If adapted somehow so that angles behind are negative (e.g. helping you) then it feels right...

Doesn't account for gusts....

I'd think this probably doesn't get translated directly to speed, but is instead how hard it will feel. It's meant to be in watts, where a kayaker can paddle at 50-100 knots.

I would imagine this would just be plotted as how hard is this going to be... you don't want to be paddling upwind at even beaufort 3 for any length of time. Gusts of beaufort 5 would be exhausting. Would feed into the ranking.

Associated ChatGPT discussion with formulas for derivation are here: https://chat.openai.com/share/c1873071-ec2d-404d-a1ba-b77f8db16100