Scattered In The Wind

Get your head around outdoor acoustics

- Helen Czerski

My Saturday mornings are often spent paddling along the Thames in a six-man outrigger canoe. These canoes are common in the Pacific but almost unheard of over here, and they’re generally designed for exploring sunny coastlines rather than paddling past British pubs in the drizzle. Last Saturday was a grim, windy day. My friend Maria was two seats in front of me, making the call “hut”, which was the signal for us all to change sides with our paddles, but I could barely hear her. At the turning point, she agreed to shout louder, but also said it would be easier for me to hear her coming home because I would be downwind of her instead of upwind. We turned into the wind and it was true – I could hear her much more easily when I was downwind. But why should the wind direction affect the sound you hear over such a short distance?

A Disrupted flow