Best Free Sailing Simulator

[Joslyn Moreci]

Sailingis a exciting activityA sailing simulator lets you enjoy nature, the wind and the water. But if you don't have the opportunity to sail on a real, live sailboat, you can always fall back on sailing simulators. video games which faithfully reproduce the sensations, techniques and rules of sailing, or simply to broaden your knowledge.

There are many sailing simulations to choose from, each distinguished by its realism, content and gameplay. Whether you're a experienced skipper looking to sharpen your skills, or a novice aspiring to learn the ropes of sailing, the Sailing Simulator is your portal to a sea of adventure. Through impeccable graphics and interactive features, every game element - from boats to wind behavior - has been carefully designed to reflect the true challenge of sailing.

Take part in virtual regattas, compete against skippers from all over the world and take control of your maritime training to a level never seen before. The sailing simulator is not just a game, it's a revolution in the world of virtual navigation, a gateway to the conquest of the world's seas.

eSail Sailing Simulator is a sailing simulator that offers you a authentic sailing experiencewith numerous tutorials, modes, challenges and racing (or regatta), for learning and training in the skipper's craft. The regatta game lets you operate a 36-foot sailboat, and maneuver it with precision, using sails, ropes, winches and rails.

Sea of Thieves invites you to join a crew of pirates and embark on exciting adventures on the seas of the world. The game lets you choose your ship from several models, including sloops, brigantines and galleons, and personalize it by giving it a name, color and flag.

Sailaway: The Sailing Simulator is a sailing simulation version that lets you sail a line across the planet, in real time and with realistic weather conditions. In the game, you can choose from a wide range of boats, including catamarans, trimarans and yachts, and customize your boat by giving it a name, color and equipment to boost speed.

eSail Sailing Simulator is an excellent way to learn sailing virtually. This video game has received very positive reviews on Steam. You can buy it in the Steam store and take part in an online race against other players.

Sailaway: The Sailing Simulator is a highly realistic virtual sailing simulator that has received rave reviews for its realism and depth. The game features a variety of game modes, including races, challenges and free sailing.

Sea of Thieves is an online adventure game where players join forces to explore the seas, plunder treasure and take part in thrilling regattas. The game features fast-paced action and a beautiful open world to discover. Players can discuss their adventures and strategies in in-game chat, and the Sea of Thieves community is very active and welcoming.

The sailing simulator is a video game that lets you have fun, learn and escape, while sailing on a virtual sailboat. Sailing simulator evaluation is based on your preferences. Take a look at the features and consult the user reviews. Want to discover other worlds? Choose from top 5 video games in the world.

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I built 2 Models, The first was called White Light and was constructed from a foam sandwich of 3mm divinycell foam under glass cloth. The second was called Kwiki and this time I went low tech and constructed the boat from strip planked balsa.

Recently however I got access to a lovely model yachting lake and I also realised that the electronics problems had been solved! All I needed was to put a flight controller in the boat, so after more than 25 years, I got the old boat out of the attic and assembled it to see if I could get the old boat working.

Here is a video of the old boat in action. No flight controller on board as yet. Anyway you may be able to see the issues with keeping it flying a hull.

In order to get things working the best option is usually to start with a simulator. The next issue was that the Sailboat simulator I knew about in ArduPilot was quite basic. I initially attempted to modify it as shown here to try to model heel of a boat.

Anyway it turns out that there is an infinitely better Ardupilot sailboat simulator using Gazebo that had been built by Rhys Mainwaring, so I decided to try it out. The simulator is quite sophisticated, with realistic modelling of the physics of buoyancy and sail hull and keel forces. The downside is that there is quite a big learning curve to installing and running it, but I hope to write down my experiences with it here. After quite a little tinkering I have got the sim to simulate what I want e.g Flying a hull, as shown in the video here. With this sim working I am finally feeling ready to get the real flight controller installed in the real catamaran.

The instructions here describe how I set up the Ardupilot Gazebo Catamaran Sim on Ubuntu.

The process is somewhat involved. Building the various libraries may take a couple of hours, so be patient. I opted to put everything including ardupilot under one directory. YMMV.

Next, create a directory called ApGzCatSim. This is the root directory. Everything we need goes in here.

NOTE: Call the directory what you wish but it is unwise to rename the directory after starting the build process, since some build artefacts of asv_wave_sim ans asv_sim hard wire the build directory.

Invoke the modified ap-cat.sh script again. NOTE: It may take some time (1/2 hour on my slow system) to build the SITL version of ardupilot first time, but then it should invoke the SITL sim. You should see the console and a map with an airfield. Once built once, it should work more quickly.

Save gz-cat.sh in ApGzCatSim directory, make executable, test it works.

NOTE: First time gazebo may take a while to start while it downloads resources.

Close Gazebo-sim using the buttons in the gui (It is best not to kill it direct in the terminal)

Create a bash script called cat-sim-env.sh which will be used to set up the environment variables to run the sim. Add the environment variables described in this link to cat-sim-env.sh, but modified for our setup:

For the catamaran simulation you need to download three more repositories: Again I find it tidier to place them direct in ApGzCatSim. YMMV.

Note that these first 2 libraries will take a while to build. (30 mins for asv_wave_sim, 5 mins for asv_sim)

NOTE3: If you have a fast system , you may not need to do this, but I have a hunch that some settings such as PID constants may be heavily dependant on the physics update rate, so it would probably be worth making these mods to start with to follow this tutorial.

You could try adding some wind too. ./4wind.sh You can also try moving the mainsheet, using rc 3 . Unfortunately you will probably find that the boat is very hard to get working. It weather cocks into wind and then stops. You can get it moving a little by wiggling the rudders, but it is very hard to get out of irons. You can also try changing the wind direction, which may help you. Anyway it is very hard to sail by the keyboard, so we need to make some serious modifications, but that will have to wait until next time!

Before proceeding, I would seriously recommend you add a joystick to the sim, because controlling the sim with the keyboard is not really a practical option. See here for instructions on adding a joystick. There are a variety of input devices that will work, from game consoles to rc transmitters. It may take some time to setup, but will be worth it.

You need to setup the rudder channel as channel 1 and the mainsail channel as channel 3.

The exact values depend on the joystick.

For the rudder channel full left is negative, full right is positive of 0.

For the mainsheet channel full towards you is negative, full away positive.

Run the sim again (gz-cat.sh , ap-cat.sh, follow.sh etc) with your joystick plugged in. Check mavproxy terminal output for errors re the joystick. If all Ok, before starting the wind, you can check to see your rudders and mainsheet are working with the joystick.

OK, I hope you are now finally sailing manually in the sim. The boat is fun to sail this way and sails very realistically. It helps to have the Mavproxy map to give a birds eye view. I set up the display as in the picture. The wind in 4wind.sh is from the North.

GazeboCatDisplaySetup1366768 85.9 KB

About the benefits of simulators, no matter what area they concern, there are often heated debates among fans and opponents of virtual learning. Of course, it is difficult to call the winner in "shooting games" a real warrior, driving a virtual car will not replace the realities of the road, it is strange to consider the winner of virtual sailing races an experienced captain.

It all depends on the degree of perception and involvement in the game of each student. As for the beginning sailors, virtual simulators are a good alternative to hands-on training. A yacht is too expensive a toy for inexperienced hands. Simulators, at least, give theoretical knowledge to gain a foothold. Specialists 2yachts in this article are the best yachting simulators.

When Richard Nohl was developing his game, he made every effort to ensure that the participants of the virtual sailing regatta could live it as in reality. The computerized sailing race takes place in real time, and it will take weeks or more to fly the Sailaway. True, a modern virtual yacht is equipped with an autopilot, and having set the course, you can go about your current business. The program periodically sends reports about what is happening during the race in offline mode. The control of the yacht must be constant, the simulator uses very realistic navigation. Getting a virtual sailing ship into a virtual storm happens a lot.

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