Ocean Cleanup Boom: Windage & Debris Capture

Passive ocean-plastic collection systems don't trawl the water — they drift. A U-shaped boom, towed slowly between two vessels (or anchored across a current), moves just fast enough to overtake floating debris, whose own drift is a mix of ocean current and wind-driven "windage" that depends on how much of the object sticks out above the waterline. This simulation runs that mechanism directly: adjust tow speed, boom span, wind strength and the boom's mesh gap, and watch how each one shifts the balance between debris herded into the retention net at the apex and debris that slips underneath or outruns the boom entirely — the same trade-offs that govern real barrier-based cleanup efficiency.