Sea kayak simulator — bracing, rolling and staying seen in a real Baltic sea, in the browser

A sea kayak is the smallest vessel on the water and the first to pay for a misjudged wind. A beam sea nobody worried about in a yacht lays her over, the ships do not see her, and the Baltic in May gives a swimmer about ten useful minutes. Our browser simulator puts you in a 5.3 m single sea kayak on a real sea — today's wind, today's waves, the ships in the Riga fairway — so you learn where a brace must come, what the skeg does and how long a re-entry really takes, without the cold. You can paddle her now in the browser, on your phone too.

The boat

A British-style single sea kayak: 5.3 m long, 0.54 m in the beam, about 25 kg of hull with three hatches and deck lines, and an 80 kg paddler under a spray deck — some 108 kg all up. A skeg (0.1 m of draught up, 0.3 m down) and no engine: you are the engine.

Her figures, as the simulator's own physics give them: EASY about 3.3 kn, CRUISE about 4 kn, HARD about 4.8 kn, SPRINT 5.5 kn for about a minute, then back to HARD. Sweep strokes turn her about 18° a second at rest; she turns slowly, and that is the boat. Into 15 kn of wind and its Gulf sea she makes good 2.4 kn at CRUISE; into 25 kn only 1–2 kn.

She has almost no stability of her own; the paddler keeps her up with his hips. Beam-on to steep or breaking seas, in a gust or surfing downwind she capsizes easily.

The 3-D view is the paddler's own eye: her foredeck, the deck compass and the spray deck in front of you, the sea at face height. Below it, PADDLE · SWEEP STROKES, the kayak drawn from above with her paddle turning as you sweep, and the KAYAK · PADDLER panel: HEEL, a BALANCE bar that runs red as she nears the angle she goes over at, a COCKPIT water bar, and one hint at a time — SHE IS GOING OVER — BRACE, WATER IN THE COCKPIT — PUMP, BEAM SEA with the wave height.

What you learn on her

Every skill is tied to a control, named as it appears on the screen.

• Pacing. ↑ / ↓ (or PADDLE ▼ ▲) step the cadence: BACK HARD, BACK, STOP, EASY, CRUISE, HARD, SPRINT.
• Steering with sweep strokes. ← → or A / D; the panel reads STRAIGHT, ◀ SWEEP n % or SWEEP n % ▶. A sweep costs part of the stroke's drive.
• The skeg. SKEG UP / HALF / DOWN (key K). Up, in a beam wind she rounds up (about 90° in a minute in 15 kn); right down she falls off; about half is neutral and holds her course.
• The brace. Hold BRACE (key B, or the button) when the BALANCE bar runs red. The blade on the water stops the capsize if it comes in time, but it costs your stroke. Beam-on in 15 kn without a brace she goes over within minutes; braced in time, she stays up in anything to 20 kn.
• Reading the waves. Keep her bow or stern to the big ones. Breaking crests give a short warning before they hit; the BEAM SEA hint says when the waves lie within about 45° of her beam.
• The roll. CAPSIZED, the run goes on. ROLL (key R) may bring her up or may fail — in 12 °C water it works about two times in three in a calm, under one in four in 25 kn.
• Wet exit and re-entry. WET EXIT (key W) and you swim beside her, holding on. RE-ENTER (key R) with the paddle float takes a minute or more — about two in calm water, five or six in 15 kn over several tries, and in 25 kn half the attempts fail. Then she is half full, slow and tippy: PUMP (key X).
• Cold water as a clock. The timer under KAYAK · PADDLER shows how long you have been in: cold shock in the first minute, then the useful minutes left for that water — about ten in 10 °C, two in winter water, close to an hour in August. After that HANDS FAILING, and every attempt gets harder.
• COLREG as a small craft. No AIS and a poor radar echo: a ship sees her within about half a mile at best, less in a chop — and the simulator's ships behave accordingly. Assume nobody sees you. Keep out of fairways and channels (Rules 9 and 10). At night the paddler shows a white torch (Rule 25(d)(ii)); it lights by itself whenever navigation lights burn.

↶ 5 MIN / 30 MIN BACK puts you back where you were safely afloat — never mid-swim.

The sea is real

Free Mode starts in the Gulf of Riga off the Daugava mouth, and the whole Baltic is yours to paddle — the Gulf of Riga in full detail, the rest in detail with the simulator subscription. AREA opens the harbour picker: 107 real harbours, afloat inside any of them.

The sky is real — the sun where it really stands, the real moon and stars at night — and the weather is the real forecast from MET Norway: cloud, rain, sleet, snow, fog and the visibility they leave. The wind pushes her as it pushes every vessel here and the sea builds with it. Tap WIND to SET a practice breeze of your own, 0–50 kn with gusts and veering; REAL puts the forecast back. CURRENT shows the rivers running by their monthly discharge for today's date — the Daugava at 1–1.5 kn in the April flood — and the wind-driven drift offshore; steering across it she crabs.

The radar PPI and the AIS overlay carry the traffic — always a 183 m product tanker and a 260 m cruise ship in the Riga fairway among it — with CPA and TCPA for any target you tap; the chart is OpenSeaMap, with EMODnet depths on request. The traffic is COLREG AI: the ships give way as the rules say — to what they can see.

Shared sea — other real people on the water

◉ SHARED SEA (beside ✎ BOAT) puts you on one sea with every skipper out there now, at ×1 time. They see your kayak as SKIPPER ONLINE with the name, home port and flag you gave her, nothing else — and your cadence, skeg, brace, a capsize and the paddler in the water are all sent, so a skipper watching you go over sees exactly that. COLREG for real, because the other boats are steered by people. Logged in, SHARED SEA is on by default — one live sea for everyone at ×1 — and you can switch it off.

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

✎ SCENARIO BUILDER opens over the simulator: a name and a brief, the place (any Gulf of Riga or Baltic harbour, or any point on the chart), the sea kayak as OWN VESSEL and her start, TIME & WEATHER (dawn to night on any date; wind, gusts and veering; visibility down to thick fog; the sea state). ⊕ VESSEL puts ships on the chart, each on a course, a ROUTE or at anchor; ▱ AREA and triggers let the fog close in or the wind change when your paddler crosses a line. ⇗ MAKE A LINK packs the whole scenario into the link; whoever opens it is ready to ▶ RUN.

🎓 CLASSROOM puts a class on one private sea. The instructor opens it with TEACH — FREE SAILING, a SCENARIO from the builder or a DRILL — and OPEN THE CLASS gives a code and a link; up to 30 students at a time from any browser, a laptop, a Chromebook or an iPad. The INSTRUCTOR VIEW shows every boat with her track; the coach can PAUSE ALL, message one or all, and send 🌫 FOG or 🌬 WIND to one paddler who needs a harder sea.

TEACH is for the subscriber or instructor. Students run shared scenarios for free — a login and the code.

Where she fits

• ⚓ DOCKING mode (ENTER) in the real harbours: the harbour from straight above, to scale, her small fenders (key O), her one line (key 1) and the clearance to the nearest pontoon. The Harbour Ready lessons run under engine, so they are for the yachts and ships.
• 🎮 GAME CONTROLLER: any pad the browser shows as a gamepad; the layout switches to SEA KAYAK and a strip says what each stick and button does.
• The same water as the big boats. The MOB drills, ⚠ EMERGENCIES, ☑ PRE-CHARTER and the ⛵ REGATTA — THE BALTIC LAP 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 — run on the yachts, on the same water as your kayak.

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. The sea kayak and 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. Pick her under YOUR VESSEL (SEA KAYAK · 5.3 m), or under VESSEL beside AREA in the Paddle group.

Our main product is the VHF course (€199): the VHF certificate plus simulator practice is what we call "Charter Ready".

FAQ

Does it run on a Mac or a phone?

Yes — a browser simulator, nothing to install. On a phone the kayak's panel sits under the view, with PADDLE ▼ ▲, BRACE and the skeg as buttons.

Is the wind real?

Yes. The default wind and weather are MET Norway's live forecast where you are. Tap WIND to SET a practice wind.

Can I paddle with friends?

Yes. Log in — ◉ SHARED SEA is on by default — and you are on one sea with everyone else out there, in real time. A club can open a private class with 🎓 CLASSROOM.

Can a school or club use it?

Yes. An instructor builds a scenario with ✎ SCENARIO, shares it as a link and runs a class with TEACH; up to 30 students join free with the code.

Do I get a certificate?

The simulator gives practice, not a certificate. The certificate comes from our VHF course.

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Paddle her now: open the simulator and pick SEA KAYAK under YOUR VESSEL. See also the sailing simulator and boat docking.

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