Boat docking simulator — berthing practice in 107 real harbours, in the browser
Every charter starts and ends with the one manoeuvre nobody gets to rehearse: bringing a boat you have never handled into a berth you have never seen, with the wind on the wrong side. The SkipperCheck docking simulator gives you as many landings as you want, in real harbours drawn to scale, with the forces that move the boat shown on the plan. You can do it now in the browser — on your phone too.
What it trains
Docking mode (⚓ DOCK, or ENTER) is the harbour seen from straight above, north up, with only the boat's own controls left on the screen:
- Judging the carry. Take the way off early, let her glide, and watch her DRIFT arrow and speed in metres a minute (FORCES). Lesson 1.1 Judge the Carry is exactly this.
- Prop walk and the kick. The screw going astern walks the stern — modelled on ELEONORA, LATEKO, Libava and the 183 m tanker. Lesson 1.4 Make the Kick Work teaches you to use it instead of fighting it.
- Thrusters and twin engines. Bow and stern thrusters on the 15 m motor yacht, a bow thruster on LATEKO, the catamaran Namejs PIVOTs on her two engines. FORCES shows the bubbles where each thruster throws the water and the wash of a twin-engine split, so you see why she moves.
- Fenders and the landing. Key O puts the fenders out everywhere, PORT / STBD / ENDS each on its own. A fendered touch is soft up to 1.5 kn; on a bare side anything over 0.3 kn is HARD CONTACT. A ship's landing is judged by her sideways speed at the contact: 0.15 m/s or less is fine, faster is a HARD LANDING (−10), over 0.30 m/s is damage.
- Lines that work. Keys 1–4: BOW LINE, FORE SPRING, AFT SPRING, STERN LINE. With her cleat within 3 m of the pier a crew member steps off with the line; within 8 m under 1.5 kn it is thrown. Press again to MAKE FAST, again to CAST OFF.
- Springing off. The lines really hold her: slow ahead against the fore spring with a fender forward swings her stern out; astern against the aft spring, her bow. Module 3 Lines That Work builds the habit.
- Every mooring kind. The line buttons follow where she is: a FINGER BERTH, a MED BERTH stern-to on a LAZY LINE or a MED BUOY, a MOORING BUOY (boat hook, then the bridle), the ANCHOR on key 5 (3–5 × the depth of chain, too little and it drags), a pile box, rafting up.
- Wind and current on the berth. PRACTICE WIND and 〰 CURRENT give you the conditions a harbour never offers on demand (below).
For a beginner there is L — MAKE FAST: lying alongside under 0.5 kn it puts the fenders out and every line fast in one press. In every lesson the lines go one by one. Mistakes cost nothing: ↶ 5 MIN BACK puts you back five minutes of sailing ago with the same speed and orders.
The idea
Real harbours, empty berths. The AREA menu lists 107 real Gulf of Riga harbours, from Riga's Andrejosta and RSBC marinas to Roja, Engure, Salacgrīva, Pärnu, Kuressaare, Kihnu and Ruhnu. Pontoons, fingers, piles and quays are drawn to scale; some 1,800 berths lie empty, about 700 of them visitor berths outlined in green. A green dot marks a free berth she fits, a grey ring one too small. Nobody is in your berth, so you can try the same landing ten times. Where the map data has no pontoons a layout is approximate, and the simulator says so.
Show the forces. FORCES, on by default, draws what moves her: thruster bubbles on the side opposite the push, the wake aft of each propeller going ahead and the wash running forward along her side going astern, the WIND as a slim arrow onto her windward side with its strength and gusts, the CURRENT the same way, and her DRIFT over the ground. Along the top: speed, heading, the wind and the clearance to the nearest pier or boat, a line showing the gap once it is under 15 m.
Harbour Ready — the docking lessons
HARBOUR READY is our own step-by-step docking course: LESSONS, top right in docking mode, opens the ladder. Each lesson is one skill in a real Gulf of Riga harbour — a fixed start, a set wind, teal lesson marks on the plan, a short brief, then RUN. 34 lessons in 7 modules: Close Quarters, Coming Alongside (when the wind sets you on, when it blows you off, sideways on both thrusters), Lines That Work, Marina Boxes (bows in, stern in, the crosswind box), Baltic Harbour Methods (the buoy under the bow, a box between piles, rafting up, into harbour after dark), Stern-To for Charter (a lazy line, a crosswind, the catamaran, your own anchor) and Power and Ships (the Pershing 8X on two levers, the tanker with two tugs, the cruise ship on pods and joystick).
A lesson runs under engine with its own set wind, the same for everyone, no traffic and no shared sea, TIME ×1; objectives tick themselves along the top, every touch counts, ↻ RETRY gives exactly the same start.
The debrief is a score out of 100 — objective 40, precision 20, control 20, time 10, seamanship 10, −10 for a HARD CONTACT — and up to three stars: MADE FAST (every goal met), TIDY (70+, no hard contact), SEAMANLIKE (90+, no hard contact, no bare-side touch, no rewind). One tip, your measured numbers, and your track on the plan: green under 0.5 kn, amber to 1 kn, red faster.
Two helpers. ▶ DEMO has a demo helmsman do the lesson on your own boat, the same start and wind; the control he works pulses on your panel and the bar under the plan says what and why ("NEUTRAL — let her carry: she glides 12 m"). Touch anything and he asks TAKE THE HELM?; at the end, ▶ YOUR TURN. ┄ GUIDE (Shift+G) draws the track the demo boat made good, its orders marked (KEEP 1.5 kn, HALF ASTERN, KICK AHEAD, LINES ASHORE…); drift off and a curve leads you back.
The vessels you do it on
Docking mode takes every one of the 22 vessels, and each docks her own way. The lessons are built on the charter fleet: the 15 m motor yacht (bow and stern thrusters, draught 1.5 m), ELEONORA, an Albin Ballad 30 with a tiller and prop walk, LATEKO, a Beneteau 50 with twin wheels, a bow thruster and a 2.3 m keel, and the catamaran Namejs on two engines; Module 7 adds the Pershing 8X on two levers, the 183 m tanker (the telegraph one order at a time, tugs at each end) and the 260 m cruise ship (pods on SEA or JOYSTICK). Free docking also takes the motorboat, the jet ski, the ILCA 7 and Optimist, the AC75, the Explorer 40, Libava, the sea kayak, the sea plane, the pilot boat, both tugs, the PSV, the CTV and the survey catamaran LOTE. ▤ POSTER shows your vessel's wheelhouse poster — turning circles, stopping distances, prop walk, the thrusters and the wind they hold — measured from this simulator's own physics.
The sea is real
Docking mode is a view onto Free Mode, and Free Mode is a real sea: the Gulf of Riga in full detail and, with the simulator subscription, the whole Baltic from Luleå to Skagen and Kiel — the AREA picker lists about 2,000 Baltic harbours, and you start inside them and dock there too. CROATIA · CENTRAL DALMATIA is a second sea: Split, Trogir, Hvar, Vis, stern-to on a lazy line or on a mooring buoy in the coves.
The wind is today's real forecast from MET Norway where you are. PRACTICE WIND (tap WIND) sets your own: to the degree, 0–50 kn, gusts NONE, LIGHT or STRONG, STEADY or VEERING; the boat, the sea and FORCES take it, the sky stays real. 〰 CURRENT moves the water: REAL runs the rivers by their monthly discharge for today's date — the Daugava about 0.2–0.4 kn most of the year, 1–1.5 kn in the April snowmelt; SET gives a stream of your own, 0–4 kn, to practise a ferry glide across it or stemming it to come alongside. Her hull feels it: she crabs across a stream and, stopped, drifts with it. Day and night follow the real sun; the radar, AIS and the chart stay with you; the traffic keeps COLREG.
Shared sea — other real people on the water
Logged in, SHARED SEA is on by default — one live sea for everyone at ×1 — and you can switch it off. The boats you see are other skippers, right now, and they see you. A practice wind is yours only — the others keep the real wind and see PRACTICE WIND by your boat's name. A docking lesson runs with no shared sea, so every score is comparable.
Classroom and the scenario builder
An instructor builds the exercise with ✎ SCENARIO BUILDER: the place (any harbour, or any point on the chart), the OWN VESSEL and her start — in the harbour, UNDER WAY, or MADE FAST at a berth you tap, alongside, between fingers, stern-to or in a pile box — the time of day, wind, visibility and sea state, and a share link.
🎓 CLASSROOM puts a class on one sea: TEACH opens a private class — free sailing, a scenario, a DOCKING LESSON of Harbour Ready or a drill — with a set wind or the real one, visibility down to thick fog, and whether the students see each other. OPEN THE CLASS gives a code (like K7QM-2XPA) and a link; up to 30 students at a time from any browser. The instructor watches every boat and her track. TEACH is the instructor's, with the subscription; students run shared scenarios for free.
Who it is for
Leisure and professional alike. The charter skipper who wants the first day of the holiday to feel like the fifth, the club sailor keeping an eye in over the winter, the family learning on one boat together — and, on the same sea, the cadet before the first watch, the deck officer brushing up the rules, the instructor who needs a situation the whole class can see. Nothing here is "for beginners only" or "for professionals only": the sea, the rules and the boat's behaviour are the same for everyone, and the simulator judges every run by the same standard.
How to start
Free Mode is open to everyone — no account needed — with the 15 m motor yacht and the Beneteau 50 LATEKO at up to TIME ×10. Docking mode as a unit of its own, the Harbour Ready ladder, every other vessel, the scenario builder and Classroom TEACH come with the simulator subscription; students join shared scenarios free. SHARED SEA and the regatta need a free SkipperCheck login.
Going on charter? Our main product is the VHF Radio Course (€199, /vhf-course): "Charter Ready" — the VHF certificate plus simulator practice.
FAQ
Does it work on a phone?
Yes. Drag to look round, pinch to zoom, hold ◀ ▶ for the thrusters; buttons replace the keys.
Are the harbours real?
Yes — 107 real Gulf of Riga harbours drawn to scale, their berths left empty for you; with the simulator subscription the Baltic and Central Dalmatia too.
Is Mediterranean mooring included?
Yes: stern-to on a lazy line or a Med buoy, on your own anchor, and mooring buoys. Module 6 Stern-To for Charter teaches it.
How is a landing judged?
By speed into the pier: soft up to 1.5 kn on fenders, HARD CONTACT over 0.3 kn on a bare side; for a ship 0.15 m/s sideways is fine, over 0.30 m/s is damage.
Can I undo a bad approach?
↶ 5 MIN BACK and ↶ 30 MIN BACK put you back where you were, afloat. In a lesson ↻ RETRY gives the same start; a rewound run earns two stars at most.
Start docking
Open /boat-docking-simulator, choose a harbour and a boat, and press ⚓ DOCK. The berth is empty, the wind is real, the pontoon is yours.
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Try it on the water — in your browser
Free Mode is open to everyone on the 15 m motor yacht and the Beneteau 50; every other vessel and the docking, sailing and ECDIS units come with the simulator subscription. The VHF course gives you the certificate.
Open the simulator →