I was always interested in the America's Cup races just enough to not turn the channel when the highlights and results of that day's races came up on ESPN. At least I was interested as long as the American team was competing, but I could really never actually watch the racing itself. The most exciting it ever seemed to get was when a ship turned into another direction as it zig-zigged through the water. The sail would go swinging across the deck and crewmen would work like mad cranking that two-handled thingy. Secretly, if I ever did come across the America's Cup on the tube, I would hope that I'd see someone get caught off guard by that sail and get knocked off the boat. Now that would be worth watching. As you can tell, I'm not exactly what folks would call a yachting fan, and I don't know just a whole lot about it. That is, I didn't know a whole lot about it until Sail 95 came across my desk. Sail 95 is the new America's Cup simulator from Vivid Simulations that gives you the chance to actually sail one of those yachts yourself.
Since I was a novice to sailing, the first thing I did was to check out the manual to get a few tips on the sport. What I found was a thesis on the basics of wind and sails and how they move the boat through the water. I did actually learn how ship can sail upwind, which I never knew before, but I just wanted to sail the boat. Make sure that you understand that about Sail 95, this is a sim-u-la-tor. You can't climb into the yacht and go scooting around the water without knowing sailing. The manual does include a full-blown section on the art and science of sailing, but some of it reads like a college physics course. For example: "By normalizing the values for lift and drag to the magnitude of the total force (all drag) acting on a standardized cylindrical foil, we obtain two coefficients, CL and CD, for lift and drag that we can directly compare with other values for different airfoils..." What? There is a lot of science involved with sailing, some to all of which you'll need to know to play Sail 95 competitively. I love flight simulators, and the science of sailing a racing yacht is on par with, if not exceeding, flying a plane. If you dig stuff like finding the best angle to move your sail to catch the wind at such and such speed, you'll be OK. If you're like me, you'll soon be wanting to go out and buy a big outboard motor to hook on to your yacht and show those sailing playboys what real speed in the water is all about.
Once you get into the game, things pick up a little. The game can be controlled through a joystick or a mouse, but the mouse is a lot easier. The main things you control are the rudder and sheeting angles. Sheeting what? Never mind. The whole time I played, I was so busy trying to read my wind gauge, watching the map for my opponent and markers, and trying to steer the boat correctly, that I never had time to mess with the sheeting angle.
As far as the interface goes, it's easy enough to adjust something once you figure out what it is that needs to be done. The whole game is played from one screen which is very helpful. Actual America's Cup yachts take 16 people to operate everything and Sail 95 is trying to simulate an America's Cup yacht, so it goes without saying that there's a honkin' lot to keep up with. Fortunately, there are options you can choose to put the computer in charge of the sheeting angle and such so you can drive the boat.
Sail 95 runs out of Windows in 1280x768 resolution, so as you can guess, it's quite graphically impressive. The boats are very nicely done and the water effects are pretty. There are three main viewing screens showing you the overhead view of the race course, a remote view of the two ships, and a cockpit view that puts you right behind the wheel. All of these views are very nicely done and you can freeze either the remote or cockpit views to make your machine run faster. However, frame rate in a game like this is not as important as some other games. This is no Doom. If you can get a frame rate of about four frames per second or better, you're doing great .
The instrument panel at the bottom has what is, beyond a doubt, the most sophisticated looking gauges I've ever had to use in a PC racing simulation. They definitely work - after a few races I was using my gauges effectively - but they aren't simple altimeters. These things tell you the direction of the wind, the direction that it feels like the wind is coming from (no kidding, and it's important too), the angle of your sails, the direction to and from your opponent, wind history, and more. Like I said, it's a lot to keep up with.
The one thing that I can't get over, is that with all of this stuff to learn and all of this stuff to do, it just isn't more exciting than it is. Granted, sailing enthusiasts will like it a whole lot more than I did, but for someone who wants to get into working all the detailed stuff, it's very difficult to do without the computer controlling something. Remember, this boat is something that takes 16 people to sail, and one person is going to have a rough time doing it themselves. I guess it basically comes down to this question: how exciting can sailing be? If you get all excited just thinking about it, you might want to check out Sail 95. I mean, most people I know that sail find sailing relaxing. Sail 95 is a well-done sailing simulation, but after playing it, I now realize why there isn't a flood of sailing games on the PC market. I'll still probably just watch the results on ESPN.
