Weekend Races – In and Out of the Bahía Blanca in Argentina
Hello Pioneers,
Finally here are this weekend’s races, sorry for the wait!
We love hearing about what you’re up to, let us know how your race is going on the forums or on twitter @SailawayWorld!
Long Race
Bahía Blanca Long Race Saturday 9th December – 18:00 UTC / 20:00 CEST / 11:00 PDT / (Sunday 10th) 03:00 JST
Est Distance: 125 NM
Est Time: 25 hours
Weather report A race around the “White Bay” near the important port of Bahía Blanca in Eastern Argentina.
Badge:
Medium Race
Isle of White Medium Race Sunday 10th December – 12:00 UTC / 14:00 CEST / 05:00 PDT / 21:00 JST
Est Distance: 15 NM
Est Time: 3 hours
Weather report A big storm is heading into Europe and we’re trying to get to the safety of Southampton harbour before it gets too bad!
Short Race
Chittagong Short Race Sunday 10th December – 04:00 UTC / 06:00 CEST / (Saturday 9th) 21:00 PDT / 13:00 JST
Est Distance: 5 NM
Est Time: 50 mins
Weather report This week we’re in near the large Bangladeshi port of Chittagong.
Enjoy and safe sailing!
The Sailaway Team
Weekend Races - Take on the rough sea around the Shetland Isles in this weekend's long race!
Hello Pioneers,
Here are this weekend's races!
Remember, if you don’t want to sail alone, you can look for a crew in the Multiplayer Forum, there are plenty of sailors looking for crew members or boats to sail with. Perhaps some of you more experienced sailors could team up with newbies and spread the knowledge?
Long Race
Shetland Isles Long Race
Saturday 2nd December - 10:00 GMT / 11:00 CST / 03:00 PDT / 19:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 220NM
Est. Race Time: 28 hours
Weather report:⛅ More detail A very stormy race from the Faroe Islands to the Shetland Isles with extreme winds and waves - just try and survive!
Badge:
Medium Race
Northern Mariana Islands Medium Race
Sunday 3rd December - 04:00 GMT / 05:00 CET / (Saturday 2nd) 21:00 PDT / 13:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 15NM
Est. Race Time: 3 Hours
Weather report: ⛈️ More detail A tricky in-and-out course between the islands of Northern Mariana.
Short Race
Lima Short Race
Sunday 3rd December - 20:00 GMT / 21:00 CET / 13:00 PDT / (Monday 4th) 05:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 5NM
Est. Race Time: 50 mins
Weather report: ⛅ More detail This week we're near the Peruvian capital of Lima.
Share your progress on Twitter and Facebook, and the Steam Forums - we'd love to hear what you think and how you got on!
Enjoy and safe sailing!
The Sailaway Team
Weekend Races - Race around the beautiful Loyalty Islands in the Coral Sea
Hello Pioneers,
Here are this weekend's races! The îles Loyauté long race kicks off tonight in the US so make sure you're ready.
Remember, if you don’t want to sail alone, you can look for a crew in the Multiplayer Forum, there are plenty of sailors looking for crew members or boats to sail with. Perhaps some of you more experienced sailors could team up with newbies and spread the knowledge?
Long Race
îles Loyauté Long Race
Saturday 25th November - 02:00 GMT / 04:00 CEST / (Friday 24th)18:00 PST / 11:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 160NM
Est. Race Time: 32 hours
Weather report:⛅ More detail A round-and-half-back race through the French Loyalty Islands. The weather is set to remain pretty constant so route planning should be a bit easier.
Badge:
Medium Race
Isla Colón Medium Race
Sunday 26th November - 20:00 GMT / 22:00 CEST / 12:00 PST / 13:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 20NM
Est. Race Time: 2 Hours
Weather report: 🌦️ More detail Race around the Panamanian island of Colon, once a haven for Pirates.
Short Race
Dar es Salaam Short Race
Sunday 26th November - 12:00 GMT / 14:00 CEST / 04:00 PST / 21:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 5NM
Est. Race Time: 50 mins
Weather report: 🌦️ More detail This week we're off the former Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam.
Share your progress on Twitter and Facebook, and the Steam Forums - we'd love to hear what you think and how you got on!
Enjoy and safe sailing!
The Sailaway Team
Sailaway Update V.0.9.027 - More hot keys plus controller support!
Hello Pioneers,
Updates have been on the quiet side recently due to ongoing work getting the new game server up and running but this is coming along well and hopefully soon we can move everyone over to it.
In the meantime we have just added the following new features:
Extra Hot Keys
A much requested feature since we initially released key customisation was to add a key for every line on a boat, this is now the case so you should be able to assign your controls just as you like.
Controller Support
Along with the extra keys to customise, this menu also allows you to assign controller axis and buttons to various controls for the game.
We have tested this controller support with various controllers we have available but as ever please report any problems you may come across.
In addition, the team has been reviewing what is and isn’t achievable between now and the v1.0 launch of Sailaway and updated the roadmap accordingly, there is now a number of new features listed that we are aiming to implement before this launch.
This week's long race is out in the Pacific Ocean with no land to help guide you - as ever, keep an eye on the weather and see if you can spot an advantageous route!
Long Race
South Pacific Long Race Saturday 18th November - 18:00 UTC / 20:00 CEST / 11:00 PDT / (Sunday 19th) 03:00 JST
Est Distance: 155 NM
Est Time: 31 hours
Weather report A race in the middle of nowhere with no land to guide you. Watch out for the big waves and keep an eye on the weather!
Badge:
Medium Race
Insel Fehmarn Medium Race Sunday 19th November - 12:00 UTC / 14:00 CEST / 05:00 PDT / 21:00 JST
Est Distance: 30 NM
Est Time: 6 hours
Weather report A longer race this week around the German island of Fehmarn. The wind is supposed to die down a bit as you go but have your reefs at the ready.
Short Race
Rapu-Rapu Island Short Race Sunday 19th November - 04:00 UTC / 06:00 CEST / (Saturday 18th) 21:00 PDT / 13:00 JST
Est Distance: 5 NM
Est Time: 50 mins
Weather report This week we're off the coast of the beautiful island of Rapu-Rapu in the Philippines.
Please remember that Sailaway is in Early Access and you may experience bugs during races. We're doing our best to address any reported issues, but some take longer to fix than others.
Share your progress on Twitter and Facebook, and the Steam Forums - we'd love to hear what you think and how you got on!
Enjoy and safe sailing!
The Sailaway Team
This Weekend's Races - Find The Wind To Tripoli!
Hello Pioneers,
Here are this weekend's races!
This week's long race is taking place across a tricky weather system so make sure to look at how the wind will change to keep yourself moving (try using windy.com, the link is below) - the shortest route is not always the fastest.
Long Race
Tripoli Long Race Saturday 11th November - 10:00 UTC / 12:00 CEST / 03:00 PDT / 19:00 JST
Est Distance: 185 NM
Est Time: 27 hours
Weather report A tricky weather front is moving between Malta and Libya so do your homework on what's going to happen or risk being stuck in the doldrums!
Badge:
Medium Race
Samoa Medium Race Sunday 12th November - 04:00 UTC / 06:00 CEST / (Saturday 11th) 21:00 PDT / 13:00 JST
Est Distance: 15 NM
Est Time: 3 hours
Weather report A Z shaped course with two upwind sections, time to get your tack on!
Short Race
Houston Short Race Sunday 12th November - 20:00 UTC / 22:00 CEST / 13:00 PDT / (Monday 13th) 05:00 JST
Est Distance: 5 NM
Est Time: 50 mins
Weather report This week we're in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Houston, Texas.
Please remember that Sailaway is in Early Access and you may experience bugs during races. We're doing our best to address any reported issues, but some take longer to fix than others.
Share your progress on Twitter and Facebook, and the Steam Forums - we'd love to hear what you think and how you got on!
Enjoy and safe sailing!
The Sailaway Team
Sailaway Update V.0.9.026 - Some fixes and improvements
Hello Pioneers,
Here are the patch notes for today's update.
Fixes & Improvements
Fixed profile and voyage text input fields not working.
Fixed tutorials stopping when automatically moving to the next.
Fixed an issue where distant land was sometimes rendered in the wrong colour.
US Map levels 2-5 have been updated to match their new low level versions.
The detection range of buoys are now shown on the map.
Fixed an issue where the maintain angle to the wind auto-navigation option would cause your heading to adjust when logging in.
Fixed some map areas around Hawaii that were incorrect.
Weekend Races - Race in the newly updated US Great Lakes
Hello Pioneers,
Here are this weekend's races!
The Apostle Islands Medium Race takes place in the US great lakes that have just been remapped to be more accurate! Also, the Short Race should take place during the sunrise to welcome in the new sunrise/sunset functionality on the map.
Remember, if you don’t want to sail alone, you can look for a crew in the Multiplayer Forum, there are plenty of sailors looking for crew members or boats to sail with. Perhaps some of you more experienced sailors could team up with newbies and spread the knowledge?
Long Race
Turtle Head Island Long Race
Saturday 4th November - 02:00 GMT / 03:00 CET / 19:00 PDT / (Friday 3rd) 03:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 155NM
Est. Race Time: 33 hours
Weather report:☀️ More detail Make your way through the reefs of northern Australia, watch out for the shallow spots!
Badge:
Medium Race
Apostle Islands Medium Race
Sunday 5th November - 20:00 GMT / 21:00 CET / 13:00 PDT / (Moday 6th) 13:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 15NM
Est. Race Time: 3 Hours
Weather report: ☁️ More detail A race through the newly mapped islands of Lake Superior. North America has recently been remapped and is more accurate than ever!
Short Race
Salina Cruz Sunrise Short Race
Sunday 5th November - 12:00 GMT / 13:00 CET / 05:00 PDT / 21:00 JST
Est. Race Distance: 5NM
Est. Race Time: 50mins
Weather report: ☀️ More detail To celebrate our new day/night cycle on the map, this week we're racing at sunrise off the coast of Mexico - let us know what you think!
Please remember that Sailaway is in Early Access and you may experience bugs during races. We're doing our best to address any reported issues, but some take longer to fix than others.
Share your progress on Twitter and Facebook, and the Steam Forums - we'd love to hear what you think and how you got on!
Enjoy and safe sailing!
The Sailaway Team
Sailaway Development Update: Early Access will be a little longer than planned
Hello Pioneers,
This month marks 6 months since Sailaway: The Sailing Simulator launched into Early Access! It’s been so exciting to see how much people enjoy Sailaway and we’re so incredibly grateful to everyone who has picked up an Early Access copy, given feedback and helped us make this the best sailing simulation it can be!
We had ambitious plans for improvements during Early Access, perhaps too ambitious for our one-man development team. As you can probably tell from looking at our Development Roadmap, although Richard has made significant progress, we are still working on some BIG features that unfortunately mean we will need to stay in Early Access a little longer.
We’ve already implemented a number of features to bring the oceans to life including more ambient sounds, Seagulls, Dolphins and Whales, better real-time weather accuracy and more buoys, lighthouses and markers. Improving the accuracy of the coastlines and refining heightmap data will improve on this even more and is our focus at the moment.
The heightmap data in particular is taking a lot longer than we anticipated, as Richard explained in his latest developer blog. We are importing ENC charts to improve our 3D model of the earth further, but since the world is a really big place and the resolution is as small as we can make it, the amount of data is immense and takes more time than we thought. Once this import process is complete it should make our data far more accurate! Hopefully you can already see the improvements in the US coastline after Update V.0.9.024.
Further race improvements are planned and we are looking for new servers to house Sailaway. Being a persistent world means that Sailaway needs A LOT of data and our old servers, although good, weren’t created with the current number of players in mind. It’s a great problem to have, but not one we expected to encounter so quickly!
We also have a number of community members testing our race creation tools, you can already play their races in the Races tab under ‘Player Created Races’.
As you know there are now five boats in the current version of Sailaway: the 38′ Cruiser, Mini-Transat, 52′ Classic Yacht, 52′ Cruising Catamaran and the brand-new 50′ Performance Cruiser! We have plans for more and we’re currently working on the next addition...
Right now work focuses on tracking down and eliminating small performance hiccups, reducing memory usage, bug fixing and improving the overall stability.
The hot-key system has now been in place for a while but we’re continuing to test this and working out what tweaks would improve this based on your feedback. Oh and lastly, controller support has been on our wishlist of features for some time and work will start on this as we approach full release.
We’re planning for this extended Early Access period to end early next year, so it’s not too much longer to wait. We really believe that this extra time is just what Sailaway needs and will allow us to release into V1.0 with a truly special sailing sim!
We also want to take the time to let you know what Sailaway will not be. We’ve seen a lot of discussions about survival mechanics, career modes and other features in the Steam Forums but these do not line up with Richard’s vision for Sailaway. Richard has laid out his vision below.
Note from Richard: Sailaway is a sailing simulator that focuses on the weather, the weather conditions and sailing itself. I created Sailaway to be a tool to spread my passion and knowledge of sailing to others.
What is it not about is life on board with fishing, mending sails or dealing with water and food rations. Nor did it aim to bring a detailed replica of all the coasts, harbors, marinas and lagoons. The world is a big place and it's surface largely consists of water. The vastness of this water and the atmosphere that it creates it is where Sailaway's challenge lies.
Sailaway grew from the desire to sail the world's oceans. To experience the weather systems and ocean currents. To be able to undertake adventurous voyages that most people would probably never do in real life. For some the reason is the lack of time, for others the lack of experience and, for most, a lack of funds. A virtual sailing simulator brings these experiences within reach of everyone. To a certain extent of course, because nothing can compare to the real thing!
Not everyone is a weathered sailor with many miles at sea behind him or her. There are people who have never sailed in their lives and people who do know how to sail but want to learn more. For these groups there are tutorials and there will be more of those in the near future.
For more experienced sailors who are interested in racing or short-to-medium distance sailing or cruising there are official organized races, user organized races and the ability to sail together on a boat.
And finally the long distance sailors. (I count myself among them even though I never sailed further than a crossing of the North Sea.) The long distance races like Vendée Globe, Ostar, Mini Transat or the Jules Verne Trophy are what captured my imagination and in the future one of these races, or a trip like it, will certainly be available in Sailaway. There are preset routes in the form of challenges in Sailaway and of course the weather and currents are there to face.
Now we have a question for you: what would be your top 3 new features or improvements we could add to Sailaway? Please share them in the comments. :)
Keep in mind that during early access, you will encounter bugs and although we know they’re frustrating, please be patient while we address and fix what we can around the new feature development. We always do our best to fix and update any major issues as soon as we can and we hope our update history shows this.
Again, thank you all for your support for Sailaway since Early Access launched!
Happy sailing!
- The Sailaway Team
Sailaway Update V.0.9.024 - Updated US height map data plus map day/night indicator
Hello Pioneers,
Here are the patch notes for today's update!
New US Map data is now live
Following on from Richard's developer blog about ocean depth accuracy, the updated US height map data is now live! You can read how that is done at the link below:
http://steamcommunity.com/games/sailaway/announcements/detail/1441576336074358952
Day/Night added to the map!
We have added a visual indicator to the map that shows if an area is currently in daylight or darkness.
Fixes & Improvements
The current boat "Skipper" is now listed in the crew list.
Players could use the anchor as a cheat during races at the buoys by dropping and pulling anchor which would raise the gennaker very quickly. The anchor has now been disabled in races.
The sea should have better contrast in light winds.
The red gennaker of distant boats is no longer red and fades better in the distance.
Nearby terrain has been smoothed more.
Fixed an issue with terrain using the wrong shader.
