eSail Sailing Simulator

eSail is a yacht simulator built for people who actually want to learn sailing, not just steer a virtual boat. The control surface covers raising and reefing sails, tacking and gybing, working winches and travellers, dropping and setting an anchor with the right amount of chain for the seabed underneath you, and tying off mooring lines with spring lines and slip lines for departures. An AutoSail mode is available for beginners; serious learners can switch it off and run everything from the cockpit themselves.

The in-game classroom — 'Learn Yachting with eSail' — runs 20 interactive tutorials written and narrated by ocean yachtmaster Jon Dobbin and English Channel record-holder Hannah White. None of it replaces certified training, and the game says so plainly, but it sits comfortably alongside real RYA or US Sailing courses and is endorsed in print by Yachting Monthly and Practical Boat Owner. A unique paper-chart module lets you plot real courses with dividers, plotter and pencil, using lighthouse and buoy bearings to fix position.

The sandbox half of the game is set in the mid-Atlantic Shearwater Islands, a fictional archipelago shaped by volcanic activity and Spanish, British, American and Italian colonial pasts — including a folly called Little Venice with canals wide enough to sail through. Weather is modelled with moving high- and low-pressure systems that produce real wind and wave patterns, modified by land masses so that some bays stay calm during storms. Races, treasure hunts, anchoring drills, steering courses and passage planning round out the challenges, with multiplayer available outside China.