Simulated sailboat racing has been around for a long time. Tom Schnackenberg, and Posey Yacht Sim created some of the first public sailing simulators that were useful. (I still have a copy of Posey’s Tactical Simulator if you are interested). Then with some of the recent Americas cups came Virtual Skipper and its suite of excellent sailing games that have a lot to teach the new and seasoned sailors.
Over the last 10 years or so, Virtual Regatta inshore has been a great simulator that can teach many complex sailing concepts to anyone, and with a healthy online player pool, you can try your skills against other virtual sailboat racers, or your friends from all over the world. I still highly recommend new sailors to go through their tutorials to figure out some of the basics, and then progress to racing competitively online. Obviously this is never going to replace the importance of physical real world practice, but it certainly will accelerate your learning process.
Turn the page to the last couple years, and many of the best in the sport are now foiling in sailGP and getting ready for the Youth, Women, and AC70 Americas Cup regattas in Barcelona 2024. The boats they are sailing are different animals, with much higher speeds, thrills, and consequences, but most of the same tactics, rules, and strategy are the same across all sailing disciplines. The TV coverage is excellent and rivals Formula One broadcasts, but I don’t feel as connected as I would want to be to the sport, because there are some different elements to this kind of sailboat racing that are not really available to try, unless you are on one of these teams. Until now….
Yesterday I found a new sailing simulator, that is being developed by one of the best programmers of computer simulated racing titles ever, Stefano (Kunos) Casillo. He created the legendary auto racing simulator “Assetto Corsa”, which is still considered by many to be the best auto racing simulator, even after 10 years since its debut. Foiling generation 1.0 was launched by the same developer at his new development group, Jaxx Vane Studio and Hook, in November of 2023, and it has my attention.
At first blush, the graphics are fair, and the water rendering does not seem to be like IRL, but it is a 1.0 product and so many of the other features of a mature sim are there in including multiple controller support, multiplayer, force feed back in steering wheels etc. And the sailing is fast! There is a lot to learn yet, but its clear that Stefano is working on another winner as the spanish sailGP team appears to be using it:
Anyway, I have been trying to figure it out too and it has been a lot of fun and learning so far. So fun to try and understand these new variables.