Motor yacht simulator — docking, thrusters and charter handling of a 15 m motor yacht, in the browser
A charter skipper gets a motor yacht for a week and is expected to put her alongside on day one, in whatever wind the marina offers. There is no time to find out how she drifts when stopped or how fast both thrusters really walk her sideways. Our 15 m motor yacht is the default boat of the SkipperCheck simulator: the one you learn these things on, in harbours drawn to scale, in real weather, with a debrief that measures what you did. You can sail her now in the browser, on your phone too — nothing to install.
The boat
She is 15 m long, 4.5 m in the beam, draws 1.5 m, has a 5.5 m air draft and weighs about 25 tonnes: a single shaft propeller, a wheel, an autopilot, and a bow thruster and a stern thruster. In the simulator's own measured figures (▤ POSTER opens her wheelhouse poster, as ships carry on the bridge) she makes about 13 kn ahead and 4.7 kn astern; hard over at 8 kn she turns at some 8°/s with a tactical diameter of about 3.2 lengths; the autopilot takes a +30° order in 13–18 s.
The thrusters make her a motor yacht and not a launch. The bow thruster alone swings her at about 5.6°/s — 180° in 37 s. Both the same way walk her bodily sideways at roughly a knot and a half in calm water; one against the other and she turns on the spot at nearly 10°/s. The bow thruster holds her bow against a beam wind of about 21 kn — the point at which thrusters stop being the answer.
Stopped, she is a different animal. Her deckhouse and hardtop put her windage aft, so her stern blows off first and she settles about 75° off the wind, drifting at around 5 % of its speed. Beam-on in 15 kn she falls off another 55° within a minute and is doing half a knot — and still gathering pace. That drift is what makes every berth harder, and it is the first thing you are taught to watch.
The waves slow her honestly: into a 1 m head sea her 13 kn drop to about 11.3. The 3-D bridge window is the view out of her wheelhouse — drag it to look round, tap a ship for 7× binoculars — and the sound is made live from the simulation: her engine by its rpm and load, the thrusters, fenders squeaking, lines creaking under load. Inside the wheelhouse the outside is muffled, as on the real boat.
What you learn on her
- Engine and rudder in close quarters. The lever (or FULL / HALF / SLOW / STOP), the rudder, DEAD SLOW, EMERG ASTERN; MID AUTO (Shift+M) lets the helm come back to midships by itself when you let go. The HUD shows the actual COG/SOG lagging the command, as on the real boat.
- Thrusters, properly. Hold ◀ ▶ (Q / E bow, Z / C stern). FORCES on the docking plan draws the thruster and propeller wash and her DRIFT as an arrow over the ground, in metres a minute.
- Wind on windage. Lesson 1.5 Let Her Settle is hers, and free: stopped off Pärnu's Japsi harbour in a gusty 15 kn, hands off for 30 s to see where the bow goes, then hold her within 10 m of a mark for a minute on engine and rudder only.
- Walking her in sideways. Lesson 2.6 Sideways on Both Thrusters at Roja's A2 berth, 12 kn blowing off the pontoon: stop abreast about 4 m off, both thrusters the same way, kept parallel. The score reads your heading drift, fenders out first, sideways speed at the touch.
- Fenders, lines and kinds of berth. Key O puts the fenders out; keys 1–4 send the bow line, springs and stern line ashore, and the lines really hold: slow ahead against the fore spring and her stern swings out. Finger berths, Med berths with a lazy line, mooring buoys, the anchor on key 5. A touch on a fender is soft to 1.5 kn; on a bare side over 0.3 kn is HARD CONTACT, −10.
- Her wheelhouse poster. Turning circles, crash and coast stops, the speed for every engine order, prop walk, what the thrusters hold, how a beam wind sets her when stopped — measured from this simulator's own physics, for comparison with any boat in the list.
- Man overboard under power. DIRECT RETURN: wheel over towards their side so the stern swings clear, back slowly, the last metres into the wind, NEUTRAL a length off, the person at the windward bow.
- Taking over a charter boat. ☑ PRE-CHARTER on the motor yacht: the handover walk-round, SPOT THE FAULTS, and nine SYSTEMS drills from the engine to the gas.
- When something breaks. The ⚠ EMERGENCY drills that fit a motor yacht: engine failure on a lee shore, a fouled propeller, steering failure, fire, flooding.
Made a mess of it? ↶ 5 MIN BACK (Shift+U) puts you five minutes of sailing back.
The sea is real
Free Mode starts in the Gulf of Riga, off the Daugava mouth, heading for Ruhnu; the Gulf is in full detail, buoys and lights lit at night with their real characters. Past the Gulf the whole Baltic is yours, and with the she can start inside any of about 2,000 Baltic harbours. Central Dalmatia is a second sea.
The wind is today's real forecast from MET Norway, where you are, and so is the weather: cloud, rain, snow, fog and the visibility they leave. The sun stands where it really stands, with the real moon and stars. The sea builds with the wind and the boat feels it; the Daugava runs at 1–1.5 kn in the April flood. Tap WIND for a practice wind of your own, 0–50 kn with gusts, or CURRENT for a stream to stem.
Over it all lies the integrated bridge display: a radar PPI in relative or true motion, AIS triangles with CPA/TCPA, and the chart. The traffic — always among it a 183 m tanker and a 260 m cruise ship — gives way as the COLREGs say and sounds its fog signals.
Shared sea — other real people on the water
SHARED SEA puts every skipper on the same sea at the same time, at TIME ×1. The boat crossing your bow off Riga may be another real person at another browser, and the COLREGs between you are for real: nobody scripts the other vessel. Logged in, SHARED SEA is on by default — one live sea for everyone at ×1 — and you can switch it off. Switched off, you have the Gulf to yourself. A practice wind you set is yours alone — the others keep the real wind.
Classroom and the scenario builder — for schools, clubs and instructors
✎ SCENARIO BUILDER lets an instructor build an exercise over the chart: the place (any harbour of the Gulf or the Baltic), the motor yacht UNDER WAY or MADE FAST at a berth, the time of day on any date, wind, visibility down to thick fog, the sea state. ⊕ VESSEL adds ships with a type and a task, and AREAS and TRIGGERS make the fog close in or a vessel start when you arrive. ⇗ MAKE A LINK packs the whole scenario into the link itself; nothing is stored on our server.
🎓 CLASSROOM puts a class on one private sea. The instructor opens TEACH, chooses free sailing, a scenario, a Harbour Ready lesson or a drill, and gets a code and a link; up to 30 students join from any browser — a laptop, a Chromebook, an iPad. The INSTRUCTOR VIEW shows every boat with her track and CPA ring; the instructor can PAUSE ALL, close in the FOG, change the WIND, fail an engine or send a MAN OVERBOARD, and gets a SUMMARY per student at the end. TEACH is for the subscriber or instructor; students run shared scenarios for free.
Where she fits
The motor yacht is the boat of the docking side of the simulator. ⚓ DOCK (or ENTER) turns the screen into the harbour from straight above, north up, to scale, every free berth she fits marked with a green dot — in 107 real Gulf of Riga harbours, and in the Baltic and Dalmatian harbours with a plan. The Harbour Ready lessons run on her for windage and thruster work and offer her as a variant on many others; ▶ DEMO shows a demo helmsman do each lesson first on your own boat, and GUIDE lays his track on the plan.
She is one of the four presets of the ECDIS chart plotter unit (15 × 4.5 m, 5.5 m air draft, 1.5 m draught): draw a route, TEST THE ROUTE, and the plotter checks every leg against the depths plus a metre of under-keel clearance, the narrows, the bridges and her turns.
🛟 MOB DRILLS, ☑ PRE-CHARTER and ⚠ EMERGENCIES all run on her; GLASS fills the screen with the view; a game controller steers her as SINGLE LEVER + WHEEL.
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; every other vessel, 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. Our main product is the VHF Radio Course (€199), which gives the certificate — the "Charter Ready" idea is that certificate plus the handling practised here: /vhf-course.
FAQ
Does it run on a Mac or a phone?
Yes — a browser simulator: Chrome, Edge, Safari on a Mac, iPad or iPhone, Android. Nothing to install.
Is the wind real?
Yes: the live MET Norway forecast where your boat is, with the real sky, weather and fog.
Can I sail with friends?
Yes. The SHARED SEA puts everyone on one sea in real time; a private group joins an instructor's CLASSROOM with a code.
Can a school use it?
That is what CLASSROOM and the ✎ SCENARIO BUILDER are for: up to 30 students, the instructor's view, injected fog and engine failures.
Do I get a certificate?
The simulator gives practice and scored debriefs, not a certificate. The certificate comes from the VHF Radio Course, which this practice complements.
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Take her out now: the motor yacht in the Gulf of Riga · in Ruhnu harbour, ready to come alongside · /boat-docking-simulator · /ecdis-simulator · /vhf-course.
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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 →