I'm curious what knowledgeable sailors and/or gamers in other systems think of the 8-direction wind model.

I was a little surprised it was that coarse-grained. I know SOG was designed to be simple, and in that sense it's fine. But my layman's impression was that a 45 degree shift is fairly dramatic.

I wonder what people would think of a houserule where you had more (16?) wind directions, perhaps with a slightly greater chance that shifts would occur (since they would be smaller) and maybe some low-probability chance for a larger than 22.5 shift (representing gusting or variable winds)?

Would that add a bit more reality? Another thing to keep you on your toes as a sailor? Or am I thinking about the wind wrong?