Wind & Water

With a little practice, everyone should be able to dock a boat. However, add some wind and water current, and even the most experienced boaters will find docking a boat a real challenge.

Select the wind and water heading and amount at the start menu. Also, select wind gusts / no gusts at the start menu. When “gusts” are on, the actual wind and/or water speed can be as much as 1.5 times the nominal wind and/or water speed. Wind gusts can last for about five seconds.

The wind & water heading and amount can also be updated when you are in the simulator. Thanks to Phil’s suggestions, we have added upgraded the wind and water instrumentation. There is now a wind gauge that attempts to emulate a commercial gauge. We added a water gauge (which in reality doesn’t exist) to control the water speed and direction.

We updated the Wind and Water Indicators to improve the user experience. Just click on the + / – symbols to increase / decrease the wind / water speed. Then click on any circle to change the wind / water direction.

13 thoughts on “Wind & Water

  • Hello im a fisherman i work on a 45 foot lobster boat which is also used for dragging for scallops i would like to know if there is a simulator to learn how to properly set my drag out how much cable to use to how many fathoms of water what speed Should i use to drag with 2.4 knots ? Please let me know if there is asimulator

    • Tyson,

      Thank you for your question. The short answer is we don’t know. We are posting your question to see if anyone else knows the answer. We could add that as a feature if someone could provide us with a detailed description of how the process works.

      Thanks,
      TheBoatDocker Group

  • This is a great simulator and I am happy you built it for us. I would like to suggest it to my customers and had a question. When you are on the long straight dock with the wind pushing you against, is there a way to pivot the boat away from the dock by engaging one engine forward and one reverse to get the stern to move away from the dock. That is how I do it in a real boat and would like to show people that on the simulator.

  • Hi, I would like to continue with suggestions as I do believe this sim could become a very good solution for student pilots to get a better understanding of the boat handling in wind and currents. I will definitely let the word around in Sweden.
    1. Choose different typ of vessel.
    Maybe you could have a drop list on the start page letting users choose boat typ: sailing boat or outboard single engine motor boat.
    2. Wind effect on the BOW.
    A sailing boat is effected by the wind differently as the BOW will blow faster then the STERN (due to the big rudder and the fact that a sailing boat have a huge keel in the centre. I would love to help you as a beta tester. You can contact me on e-mail if you like.

  • Hi there
    Looks like a useful program I would humbly suggest:-
    a) The wind direction is incorrect as a NE wind comes from the NE rather than goes towards NE. It is opposite to the logic for tidal direction. This might seem pedantic but it could cause a serious misunderstanding in the real world.
    b) It would be good if the boat speed was displayed.
    c) If a wind instrument could be displayed (showing speed and direction) similar to that used on most boats (i.e. red for port and green for starboard) this would improve the realism of the simulation.
    Best wishes.

    Phil

    • Phil,

      Thank you for your suggestions. We implemented (a) immediately. Thank you for catching that. (b) is more perplexing. We display the engine speed but wonder how you know the boat speed. Are you using GPS information? If so, that is boat speed with respect to the land and not the water. Furthermore, I’m not sure how to determine true boat speed (whatever that is) based on engine speed, water speed, and wind speed. Please advise.

      With regard to (c), could you send some photos to theboatdocker@gmail.com describing what the instruments should look like and we will be happy to implement that feature.

      Thanks again Phil for improving simulator.

      TheBoatDocker Team

    • For a) I suggest on the home page configuration that “wind heading” be renamed “wind direction” as a HE wind as Phil points out is from the NE therefore it’s heading is actually SW. Perhaps a “from the” in between the value and direction boxes to add clarity for novice users.

  • Great piece of work. I have two suggestions, well, maybe three. I would be very happy to be contacted over these.

    1. I have a single outboard; the app shows graphically the effect of helm-over/reverse engine but what would help skippers get the ‘feel’ it would be very nice if the engine rotated left and right, as it does in real life. That way one could get used to the slightly counter-intuitive way one has to turn the wheel in order for the stern to move left or right.

    2. Drift fishers often throw the helm over to keep the boat side-on to wind and currents; in the simulated this effect appears not to work, in the sense that while drifting in the sim. (no power) helm position does not seem to affect the boat’s angle

    3. Dream time: I would happily pay for this on an iPhone, especially if the phone’s accelerometer was used as the wheel.

    Thank you for building this.

  • Thank you for your fantastic sim!!!

    I’ve been waiting for someone to do this.

    I’m a sailor, and often use ‘spring lines’ for difficult departures in tight quarters.
    Any chance of adding this feature?
    Very difficult to learn and teach in the field with different winds and currents.

    See forward and aft spring lines below . . .
    http://dunncruisingguide.com/ddunn/BoatHandling.htm

    Thanks much!

    Howard

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