I have gone downwind hundreds or thousands of times on many different types of sailboats, and I have never seen the wind indicators streaming behind me as I did so.
Sailing downwind faster than the wind looks and feels like sailing upwind. How often have you, when the tell tales are streaming aft, checked to see if a stationary flag was blowing in the opposite direction?
You could also have sailed on many kinds of boats whose hulls experience too much water resistance before achieving the speed of the wind to accelerate further with the power provided by that wind.
Sailing downwind faster than the wind looks and feels like sailing upwind. How often have you, when the tell tales are streaming aft, checked to see if a stationary flag was blowing in the opposite direction?
You could also have sailed on many kinds of boats whose hulls experience too much water resistance before achieving the speed of the wind to accelerate further with the power provided by that wind.