This is a general question about simulaters. I play no vid games. I have played a little rally and Grand Prix on a friends computer.
Winter is on the way and I was thinking a good tactics simulator might be good.
What are the best?

Try www.tacticat.com It is not a simulator, it is a tactical training game. Has cats, skiffs and Lasers. Very international fleets usually. Have fun!

Try also the VSK4, http://www.virtualskipper-game.com

There are several boat-plugins avaiable to download , for example F18 (like) catamaran
http://www.virtual-winds.com

Nice! Actually VSK5 has recently been released too.

Yes,

but I'm nut sure the VSK5 will work with the VSK4 boat plugins.

Some points about Tacticat.
Tacticat is a simple Internet software, and a race simulator, not a sailing sim. It was created by sailors to validate tactical decisions and improve the knowledge of rules.
100% of code is written by sailors who race regattas at country or continental level, that would explain the features and focus of the thing.

It was thinked as a training tool, and become ALSO a game because sailors of many countries and sailing many different boat classes use it to pass some time, to try new approaches and to meet other sailors.

Tacticat software, unlike other very good simulators, is focused only on tactics and rules: no trimming no tuning no nice realistic graphics.
Although we started only with cats, today we do have 3 different boats (laser, skiff and catamaran), each one just to make emphasis on different tactical aspects. For instance Lasers are there to play the shifts and to think about planing-notplaning, cats are for strategy (think ahead) and so on.
Sailing fields are open 24x7 for fleet, team and match racing. We have servers in USA, Europe and just now opened one in Brisbane to give Oz sailors a decent response-time.

Currently Tacticat community has more than 500 active sailors (sailing at least once a week) from more than 30 countries. Levels range from olimpics and world-level sailors to just sail-for-fun-never-raced-before.

Finally, Tacticat works as a non-profit org entity similar to an International Class and efforts are done to make it a nice tool for classes and national bodies in their goal to promote the sailing.


Tacticat sailing is in no way a substitute to real sailing. First things first.

aestela
Tacticat Admin.