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I thought I was doing something wrong. It doesn't seem like anything I do has any effect, but guess that's just because there is no apparent effect.

Eventually it made sense that boat-speed only changes the "apparent wind", as it's only simulating wind-boat interactions, not water-boat interactions.

But to get the sail-wind interaction you need the movement of the boat. To get the movement you then need the hull-water interaction. Modeling just a static, vertical, sail doesnt really demonstrate anything practical. It is more akin to similating a captive foil in a wind tunnel.

The obvious next step would be to calculate the cog and tilt the entire rig in response to sail forces, which sheds wind until a balance point is reached, or the boat flips.

Even some kind of wake or something would help.