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Comment by reddit_clone | Hacker News Reader

On a related note, I would love to see an animated explanation for how sail ships worked.

As a fan of Hornblower series,I suspect most of the relevant details went over my head because I didn't understand this.

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Seems like a good contender for a https://ciechanow.ski/ interactive article.

That's exactly what I was wishing existed when I was looking at these walls of text. There's https://ciechanow.ski/naval-architecture/ which is interesting, but not quite the same

These are good animations for tall ships:

Warship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Nr1AgIfajI

Explorer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pYqXrFx6S8

They don't cover the actual physics and processes of sailing a tall ship, but they do explain all the parts and pieces and how they connect.

There is a modern-ish simulator here: https://thapen.itch.io/painted-ocean

The tutorial level on how to get the ship pointed in the right direction and moving out of the harbour will give you the basics.

I'd love to have a simulator for a sailboat, preferably running in a browser.

I built one recently to mostly help myself visualize how sail trim worked and how various boat controls like mainsheet and backstay affected sail shapes, various forces and boat performance. It uses a physics-based VPP and I calibrated it against Catalina 36 polar charts, so should be pretty precise!

I plan to integrate the simulator with the sail trim guide I'm building to help people learn.

It's a WIP, but accessible at https://www.sailrhythm.com/

Happy to answer any questions!

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