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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Sail a historical full-rigged ship in real global weather

This is a simulator of a frigate from about 1800. It has realistic physics, tuned to match historical performance. The UI is based around commands given in period naval language. Rather than use the current weather, it has a full year's weather data (for 1980 - taken from https://psl.noaa.gov/data/gridded/data.ncep.reanalysis2.html). This allows the weather to change realistically under time acceleration. To learn the basics of handling a square-rigged ship, start the "Harbour" scenario, click on the instructions button at the bottom left, and follow the instructions…

Sail is a historical frigate simulator set around 1800 with realistic physics and period-accurate naval mechanics. Players issue commands using authentic naval language to maneuver a full-rigged ship across global… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Sail a historical full-rigged ship in real global weather launched in 2023; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

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    SailSim▲64

    Sailing simulator for mobile devices

    2022 · play.google.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4AF

    I've seen some interests in (simulation) video games here on HN so I thought I'd share a short version of our story. More than 6 years ago, me and my friend from university were playing around with an idea of making a game we always wanted to play. We worked on it on weekends but the progress was quite slow, especially due to so many dead ends and wasted effort. Eventually however, we solidified our direction and decided to take the risk to resign from our well paid SWE jobs and work on it full time. It took more than a year but yesterday we have finally released it on Steam:…

    2022 · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Crew up, sail pirate seas

    2023 · apps.apple.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6AR

    Link : http://firstglitch.com/html_projects/sailboat/sail-gl.html This is a very rough simulation of a sail boat (2D wireframe), that you can sail using force of "wind" (modeled as a million particles, animated using webgl) striking on the sails. The position of the wind particles and the forces of the particles striking on the sails is computed in WebGL shaders. The forces are NOT re-calculated at each frame. Which might cause some artifacts. For example, the boat might start moving after the wind has passed, if you continue adjusting the rudder and sail angle. You…

    2015 · its alternatives →

  7. 7IH

    I built this because I was interested in the data. Didn't fully get it to what I wanted, but thought I'd share it nonetheless. Maybe someone has better data sources they could share! Turns out live ship tracking APIs are expensive so I manually just copied the json from https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:57.4/cente... I'll probably have an ai agent do the same thing on some cron interval, if this gets any fanfare. To actually know if the port is open without live ship tracking I found…

    Apr 2026 · ishormuzopenyet.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    EBNF specification of the BBC's shipping forecast. Contribute to jamespwilliams/ebnf-shipping-forecast development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    I built this with Claude cause I always wanted to tinker with a simulation economoy and I love space themes. A space-economy sim where nothing is scripted. A few hundred autonomous ships each run their own planner. Some chase the best trade route, take a delivery contract, refuel, retrofit at a shipyard, or dock so the crew can rest before morale tanks. Markets price everything off supply with shortage-urgency multipliers, factions tax and subsidize, populations migrate when they're unhappy, and stations that go broke get abandoned and rot. It started as an Elixir/Phoenix prototype, but…

    Jul 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    First new release in 14 years, now in real-time 4K 🛩

    2020 · xbox.com · its alternatives →

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    Weather Forecast APIs with weather models from multiple national weather providers, combining the best models for accurate forecasts worldwide. Explore the API documentation to learn more about the available weather models, their origin countries, resolutions, forecast lengths, and update frequencie

    2021 · open-meteo.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    Realistic Ship Simulator Pc Video Game

    2022 · store.steampowered.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13

    I've seen quite a few simming discussions on HN, so thought some of you might like this - I've created a map-centered, tactical submarine simulator and it's been a blast to make. I grew up playing Silent Service II on Atari ST with my dad, then got into Silent Hunter IV in the 2000s, and most recently have been loving the more recent UBoat. In each case, the part I always enjoy the most is the plotting and charting aspect - essentially beating uncertain estimates with geometry. So I decided to see how far I could get making my own sim that focused nearly entirely on that aspect. You listen…

    May 2026 · silentshark.app · its alternatives →

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    Features include: - Several preset periodic orbits: the classic Figure-8, plus newly discovered 3D solutions from Li and Liao's recent database of 10,000+ orbits (https://arxiv.org/html/2508.08568v1) - Full 3D camera controls (rotate/pan/zoom) with body-following mode - Force and velocity vector visualization - Timeline scrubbing to explore the full orbital period The 3D presets are particularly interesting. Try "O₂(1.2)" or "Piano O₆(0.6)" from the Load Presets menu to see configurations where bodies weave in and out of the orbital plane. Most browser…

    Nov 2025 · trisolarchaos.com · its alternatives →

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    Experience the golden age of telegraphy with this authentic 1875 telegraph simulator. Practice Morse code, send messages between cities, and connect with other operators.

    2025 · telegraph.13ug1mb.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17MS

    Did this a few years ago. Seems apropos. Sources and more here: https://github.com/EngineersNeedArt/Mooncraft2000

    Apr 2026 · mooncraft2000.com · its alternatives →

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    Pilot the SpaceX Dragon 2 vehicle to the ISS!

    2020 · iss-sim.spacex.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    I (17y/o) have been developing a rocket launch simulation that allows the user to explore what it's like launching a rocket from earth and putting it into orbit. This idea originally started as an educational simulation but as i've gone more down the rabbit hole the more i've wanted to make it realistic. The problem is that I've never had a formal orbital mechanics class or anything like that so I don't know what I'm missing, what I currently have implemented is: Variable gravity Variable Atmospheric drag (US Standard Atmosphere 1976) Multi-stage rockets Closed-loop guidance /…

    Jan 2026 · donutthejedi.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20GI

    Just for fun and self education, I've built this over a weekend to teach myself why orbits exist, not just show planets going around. Something that was never clearly explain to me in school. It opens with a guided tour that builds the idea up step by step: two bodies and the equal/opposite force, inertia (the Sun is removed and Earth just drifts straight), then "an orbit is falling and continuously missing," cosmic velocities with a little rocket, Voyager 1 & 2's real gravity assists (the clock runs the actual 1977–1989 dates so the planets orbit into their grand-tour alignment and the…

    Jun 2026 · qunabu.github.io · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    Sailing simulator

    2016 · marineverse.com · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    Fully automated SpaceX ISS Dragon docking simulator system. - danirukun/spacex-iss-docking-sim-autopilot

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23
    AstroGrid▲113

    Explore the entire universe in your browser, in real 3D

    Apr 2026 · velonspace.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Hi HN, my name is Maria, and I’m a co-founder of Maritime. We started Maritime at MIT to build infrastructure for companies that need to run thousands of isolated AI agents for their customers. Imagine you set up an agent like OpenClaw, or a personal assistant agent with a custom framework, and want to give a separate version of it to every customer/friend. Each customer needs their own agent running in an isolated microVM, with persistent state, secrets, triggers, and sleep/wake behavior. Building such scalable and secure infra will take you months and will cost hundreds of…

    Mar 2026 · maritime.sh · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →