LIBAVA simulator — sailing a heavy gaff-rigged traditional yacht, in the browser

Most skippers learn on light, close-winded modern yachts. Step aboard a traditional boat — a gaff rig, a long shallow keel, a hydraulic wheel that tells the hands nothing — and what you know about tacking, stopping and coming alongside no longer quite applies. LIBAVA in the SkipperCheck simulator is that boat: 36 tonnes of pine, four sails on a gaff and a yard, a rudder that answers late. You can sail her now in the browser, on your phone too, in today's real Baltic wind.

The boat

LIBAVA is a replica of a 17th-century Dutch yacht, home port Liepāja, Latvian flag. Her figures in the simulator:

• Hull 16.5 m, 18.6 m over the bowsprit; beam 4.6 m; draught 1.3 m on a ballasted keel — no leeboards.
• About 36 tonnes; a carvel pine hull with a hull speed of roughly 9 kn.
• Sails: gaff main (54 m²), square topsail on its yard (16 m²), staysail (14 m²) and jib (18 m²) — 102 m² in all.
• One 120 hp diesel on a shaft; hydraulic wheel steering.

Under engine she makes 8.2 kn flat out and 4.1 kn astern; a crash stop from 6.5 kn takes about 20 seconds and 40 metres. Hard over at 6.5 kn her tactical diameter is about 50 m; astern the prop walk swings her bow to starboard, and she steers badly.

Under sail she is heavy and under-canvassed. In 10 kn of true wind she makes 3.6 kn at 60° off the wind and 4.7 kn on the beam; in 15 kn, 5.3 and 6.7 kn; in 20 kn, 6.7 kn close-hauled and 7.7 kn reaching, heeling only 10–11°. She points no higher than about 60° off the true wind, slides sideways with 5–6° of leeway, and is fastest on a broad reach.

The 3-D view shows her from the helm, a chase camera or from above: the sails as they are set or struck, the real sky and weather. The sound is made live from the simulation — her diesel by its load, the wind in the rigging rising with the apparent wind, a luffing sail flogging.

What you learn on her

Everything below is a feature you press, not a promise.

• Setting a four-sail gaff rig in order. HOIST SAILS / DROP SAILS set or strike everything at once (hoisting stops the engine; START ENGINE to motor-sail). Under them each sail has its own row: MAIN, TOPSAIL (key K), STAYSAIL (Shift+J) and JIB (J). The crew takes its time — her big main needs about 40 seconds up and 15 down — and the sail flogs meanwhile.
• Head to wind for the main. The main goes up, comes down or is reefed only with her bow in the wind (apparent wind 20° or less off the bow); off the wind the order is refused — HEAD UP INTO THE WIND TO HOIST THE MAIN. Under engine: motor slowly into the wind, hoist, bear away. Without it: headsails drawing, luff up while she carries way, and hoist.
• Balancing a gaff rig. Under the big main alone she carries weather helm and wants to round up; under headsails alone she carries lee helm, runs and reaches easily and cannot point. EASE / TRIM or AUTO TRIM work the sheets.
• Tacking a boat that may not come through. TACK and GYBE put the helm hard over, as she needs. Her tacks are slow: from about 12 kn of true wind they go through, in light air or a chop they fail. The old lesson applies — keep her moving, or wear round with GYBE instead.
• Steering a hydraulic wheel. The rudder moves slowly and gives no feel. Start a turn early and meet her early.
• Reefing and heavy weather. REEF reefs the main. Tap WIND for a PRACTICE WIND of your own: direction, 0–50 kn, gusts NONE, LIGHT or STRONG, STEADY or VEERING. Past 35 kn a gust lays a full-sail yacht over and she rounds up with her sails flogging. Reef early, then drop everything.
• Man overboard. 🛟 MOB marks the position, drops the dan buoy and starts the MOB clock. MOB DRILLS gives each boat the methods that fit her — FIGURE-EIGHT, QUICK-STOP and DEEP BEAM REACH under sail, DIRECT RETURN under power — each with cues, a debrief out of 100 and up to three stars. ┄ GUIDE (Shift+G) draws the recommended track from your own turning circle and the wind. The ▶ DEMO of the sail methods is shown on ELEONORA — a 36-tonne gaff sloop cannot finish them reliably every time; your turn is on LIBAVA.
• Coming alongside with a shaft and prop walk. In ⚓ DOCK the MAIN toggle sets her main with the topsail and JIB her staysail with the jib, so you can come in under the headsails alone — on a phone too. FORCES shows the propeller wash, the wind and her DRIFT. At rest her high poop catches the wind: the stern blows off first and she lies about 75° off it.
• Undoing a mistake. ↶ 5 MIN BACK (Shift+U) and ↶ 30 MIN BACK (U) put you back where you were, with the same sails and engine orders.

The sea is real

Free Mode starts in the Gulf of Riga, off the Daugava mouth — the Gulf in full detail, 231 buoys, beacons and lights lit at night with their real characters. AREA opens the harbour picker: every Gulf of Riga harbour, then about 2,000 harbours round the rest of the Baltic. The whole Baltic is yours to sail; with the simulator subscription its coasts and harbours come in detail from Luleå to Skagen, loaded as she sails.

The wind is today's forecast from MET Norway where you are; so are the cloud, rain, snow and fog. The sea state builds with the wind. 〰 CURRENT shows the rivers running by their monthly discharge and the wind-driven drift offshore; steering across it she crabs. Day and night follow the real sun.

On the display: the radar PPI with AIS targets overlaid, CPA and TCPA, and the OpenSeaMap chart with EMODnet depths. The traffic obeys the COLREGs — among it always a 183 m tanker and a 260 m cruise ship — and sounds its fog signals; FOG AUTO (Shift+Y) sounds LIBAVA's own Rule 35 signal under sail.

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. Skippers in the same real area see each other's boats in the same real wind; meet another skipper's yacht on a converging course and the COLREGs are no longer a quiz. Others see only the name, home port and flag you give her under ✎ BOAT (◉ SHARED SEA is the button beside it).

Classroom and the scenario builder — for schools, clubs and instructors

✎ SCENARIO BUILDER (beside SHARED SEA) lets an instructor build an exercise over a chart: the place (any Gulf of Riga or Baltic harbour), the OWN VESSEL — LIBAVA, UNDER WAY or MADE FAST at a berth — TIME & WEATHER (wind, visibility down to thick fog, sea state, day or night), ⊕ VESSEL for traffic with Rule 18 types and routes, ▱ AREA for zones, and triggers: the fog closes in, the wind changes, a vessel starts. ⇗ MAKE A LINK packs the whole scenario into the link itself — nothing is stored on our server — and whoever opens it is ready to ▶ RUN.

🎓 CLASSROOM (logged in) puts a class on one private sea. TEACH sets what the class sails — free sailing, a scenario, a docking lesson or a drill — and OPEN THE CLASS gives a code and a link for up to 30 students on any browser. The INSTRUCTOR VIEW shows every boat with her track and CPA ring; ❚❚ PAUSE ALL, 🌫 FOG, 🌬 WIND, 🛟 MAN OVERBOARD and ⚙ ENGINE FAILURE go to one student or all; ▤ SUMMARY gives results per student as ⤓ CSV or 🖨 PRINT. TEACH comes with the simulator subscription; students run shared scenarios for free.

Where LIBAVA fits

• ⚓ DOCK in 107 real harbours of the Gulf of Riga, seen from straight above, her fenders and lines drawn to scale; a green dot marks a free berth she fits.
• Harbour Ready docking lessons: LIBAVA is a boat variant with her own stars in 1.1 Judge the Carry, 1.3 Rudder First, Then Astern, 1.4 Make the Kick Work and 2.2 The Easy Side and the Hard Side — the lessons about carry, prop walk and the wheel that a heavy shaft-drive boat needs.
• 🎮 GAME CONTROLLER: any pad or flight-sim stick the browser sees steers her in the SAILS layout — the helm on the stick, the sheets on the controls.

⛵ REGATTA — THE BALTIC LAP, raced in identical ELEONORAs, is the first lap; the next will be somewhere else in the world, and the race tells you about every place you pass on its mark cards. ⚑ PILOT, ⛓ TOWING, ⛽ OFFSHORE and ≋ SURVEY belong to the working vessels; ☑ PRE-CHARTER and ⚠ EMERGENCIES to the charter boats. LIBAVA is for seamanship under a traditional rig.

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 50 ft cruiser LATEKO at up to TIME ×10. Every other vessel — LIBAVA among them — the docking, sailing and ECDIS units, 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. Open /sailing-simulator, or go straight to her: /colreg-simulator?scenario=familiarization&area=gulf-of-riga&vessel=libava&sails=1.

Our main product is the VHF course (€199) at /vhf-course: the certificate plus simulator practice is the Charter Ready idea.

FAQ

Does it run on a Mac or a phone?

Yes — a browser simulator, nothing to install, on a Mac, PC, Chromebook, iPad or phone.

Is the wind real?

Yes. Wind and weather are MET Norway's forecast where you are. Tap WIND for a PRACTICE WIND of your own; REAL puts the live wind back.

Can I sail with friends?

Yes. ◉ SHARED SEA puts every logged-in skipper in the same area on one sea at ×1; a 🎓 CLASSROOM gives a group a private sea with a code.

Can a school use it?

Yes. An instructor opens a class for up to 30 students, injects fog, wind shifts, engine failures and a man overboard, and downloads the summary as CSV. Students join free.

Do I get a certificate?

The simulator gives practice; stars and best scores stay in your browser, nothing is issued. The certificate comes from the VHF course — see /vhf-course.

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Sail her now: /colreg-simulator?scenario=familiarization&area=gulf-of-riga&vessel=libava&sails=1 · all sailing boats: /sailing-simulator · docking: /boat-docking-simulator · the VHF course: /vhf-course

Related reading

• Sailing simulator — sail trim, tacks, gybes, reefing and the kites in today's real wind, in the browser
• Boat docking simulator — berthing practice in 107 real harbours, in the browser
• ELEONORA — the one-design 30 ft cruiser of THE BALTIC LAP, in the browser
• 50 ft cruising yacht simulator — LATEKO: sails, sheets, reefs and docking, in the browser
• All articles · Open the simulator

Boat types are described generically; SkipperCheck is not affiliated with any boat builder or class association.