View & sim

C cycle camera: chase, helm, cinematic, overhead

Drag to look around, wheel to zoom. Every control is also a button on the control deck at the bottom.

G conditions   M mute   P pause   R reset   U chart plotter

On screen

Drag the view to look around. The camera button (top right) changes the view: chase, helm, cinematic, overhead. The map button opens the plotter: the chart, the boat's controls, conditions, lessons and this help.

Instrument (top left): tap to page through SAIL (wind dial), NAV (compass), WIND, PERF (speed against the polar, heel) and DEPTH (sounder trace with your keel drawn in). Angles are red to port, green to starboard.

Rudder indicator (bottom left): drag to set the helm and it stays where you leave it (with the Learner aids it springs back to the middle); double-tap it to centre the helm. The amber bar beside the knob is the helm's load, growing towards the side the water pushes the rudder, and red when it is hard to hold. A tiller left free is pushed by the water and she rounds up; LASH holds it where it is. MAIN / JIB faders (bottom right): up to trim, down to ease, and the crew trim the sheet there; the amber mark in the slot is where the sheet really is (it turns grey once it is made fast), the figure under the fader the load on it in kilonewtons; the telltales above show how the sail is working. CREW calls the crew: trim or ease the jib or main, sheet in, ease both, let the jib go. With hands-on winches (Assistance) a winch takes the jib fader's place: drag round it to wind (clockwise is first gear, fast and light; anticlockwise second, slow and strong), TAIL pulls a light sheet in by hand, EASE surges it round the drum, LET GO casts it off; it shows the load, the gear and how fast the sheet comes in. The THROTTLE lever appears when the engine runs.

PILOT is the tiller pilot, for longer passages: a ram on the tiller that holds her compass heading, or, as a wind vane, her angle to the wind. While it steers, its keys show over the rudder indicator: −10° −1° and +1° +10° alter course to port or starboard either side of the course it holds, and TACK (or GYBE) puts her about onto the other side. Take the tiller (drag the rudder indicator) and it lets go; PILOT again puts it on standby.

Fenders hang over the side facing the pontoon while she is in her berth. Once you are clear of it, FENDERS IN lifts them aboard (they slow her and look untidy); coming back, FENDERS OUT appears within about 60 m of a berth, on the side that will touch. Without them a knock is a hard one on her topsides.

SAILS opens the sail panel: main, jib, reef, kite, or DROP ALL. ENGINE starts and stops the engine (the light shows it running). Other keys above the helm change with the situation (lines, mooring, anchor…). ▶▶ 1× speeds up time to 2×, 4× or 8× (` key); it drops back to real time when something needs you. Everything else is in the Plotter.

Gamepad

Left stick steers (let go and the helm stays put; the pad rumbles with the helm's load) · right stick looks around · RT/LT trim/ease main · RB/LB trim/ease jib (hands-on: push the right stick right out and go round it to wind the winch) · A tack/gybe · B auto-trim · X engine · Y camera · d-pad throttle ▲▼, neutral ◀, reef ▶ · Start pause · Back chart

Seamanship

You can't sail closer than ~40° to the true wind: the sails luff and you stall "in irons". Bear away to fill the sails.

Trim each sail until it just stops luffing. Over-trimmed sails stall: you heel more and go slower.

Darker, rippled patches on the water are gusts. Ease sheets as they hit to keep her on her feet.

Running dead downwind risks an accidental gybe, so watch the wind angle past 170°.

Privacy

The game counts, anonymously, how it is used (which modes, how far people get, load times), to make it better: no names, no cookies, nothing sold or shared. Turn it off under Conditions (Share anonymous usage stats) or on the privacy page, which says what is kept and for how long.

The textbook

The free illustrated Textbook of Sailing covers all of this in more detail, and follows the Academy's lessons chapter by chapter.