I guess I’m not the only person who opened the link from yesterday and didn’t see anything about sailing.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43756926

Thank you, you’ve resolved my despair.

Very cool demo...

Most yachts have polar charts, and the speed is a function of sail area, heading, wind speed and direction amongst other things. Are you considering calculating estimated boat speed based on given conditions and controllable variables?

If other people are interested in sailboat physics -- this resource is a goldmine of information on how sailboat and sails work and physics around it: https://www.onemetre.net/Design/Design.htm

I am a lake sailer. And without landmarks or anything it is impossible for me to perceive the boat as moving.

You can set the wind to 0 and the speed somehow stays at 35 knots, I don't know much about sailing but that can't be right

A great project, but it needs some kind of grid movement and rocking, foam or something so you can perceive its movement.

Here is a fun sailboat race simulator. It's very simple, but pretty realistic especially for open ocean racing. You can use their default race course, sometimes join a planned regatta, or make your own. (It was great during COVID, to try racing across the oceans, or around the world. It's in real time, so you might not need to change anything for days If you are in the trade winds, and open ocean, but then when you get closer to land, things get "Western" very quickly - just like with a real boat. It's called SailNavSim. (Learned about it from HN.)

8bitbyte.ca

why so heavy on the water graphics and light on the sail?

it's hard to tell if you're moving

That wake thing would've totally helped me too, felt weird not seeing any movement. Glad I wasn't the only one who got thrown off.