Do the large higher yaw drag savings seen in the wind tunnel transfer to the real world?

Beat me to it!

To try to help put things in context: I would rate the winds that day as a 6 on the Beafort scale:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale

In particular, I remember the sounds of the flag snapping in the wind and the lanyard clanging against the metal flagpole…