Every release of the SkipperCheck COLREG and ship-handling simulator, newest first: what changed, in plain words, and a link that opens it straight in the simulator.
AREA → CROATIA · CENTRAL DALMATIA: Split, Trogir, Šolta, Brač, Hvar and the Pakleni islands, Vis and the Makarska riviera, with 174 harbours, coves and buoy fields, ferries on their real routes and the area's real forecast wind. With a simulator plan you start inside a harbour on the detailed chart and can dock there; without one you start at the harbour's approach.
The ground in the 3-D view now follows the chart's water closely, so narrow city waterways and harbour basins you can sail on the chart are open water in 3-D too, and no land shows where the chart has water.
Every harbour in the Gulf of Riga and round the Baltic now has empty berths of each kind its water can take: finger berths, stern buoys, Med slots with lazy lines, alongside berths, pile boxes and mooring buoys, in the mix local practice uses. Bow and stern lines and springs can go from either side.
The harbour picker offers each vessel only the harbours she fits (a harbour may be too big, never too small), and changing to a bigger vessel inside a small harbour moves her out to water that takes her hull.
With Marine Simulator Training or the Skipper Refresher Course the Baltic from the Gulf of Bothnia to Kiel, the Belts and the Kattegat streams in detail as you sail, and you can start inside, enter and dock in about 2,000 harbours. Without a plan the rest of the Baltic stays a coarse chart, with starts at each harbour's approach.
Docking mode now shows the harbour as seen from the air, with CHART to switch back to the plain plan, and the harbours whose pontoons had been guessed are laid out again like real marinas: fingers, buoys, Med mooring and alongside berths, left empty for practice.
The harbour picker lists about 1,800 harbours round the whole Baltic, searchable by name or country, and starts her at the chosen harbour's approach, heading out to open water.
Riga, Pärnu, Kuressaare, Ruhnu and the coast towns as seen from the water: landmarks modelled one by one, every building with its district's roofs and colours, and a skyline out to the horizon.
AREA lists all 107 harbours of the Gulf of Riga by country, and picking one starts her stopped in its basin near the free berths. A link with ?area= opens the simulator in that harbour.
FENDERS (key O) and four lines, bow, fore spring, aft spring and stern (keys 1–4), are now the skipper's job, and the lines hold her in the physics: warp her in, hold her against the wind or spring her off. Harbours with no mapped pontoons got marinas laid out, so every boat has room.
Harbour basins the map data had missed are now water, so every marina in the Gulf of Riga can be entered, and the harbours were rebuilt with more piers, pontoons, visitor berths and waterside buildings. The bridge view also starts wider.
Free Mode is free for everyone, with no account. The shared sea and regattas need a free SkipperCheck account. The detailed Baltic and Croatian charts and every docking lesson come with Marine Simulator Training or the Skipper Refresher Course. The simulator is a training tool, not a navigation product.