Sailing in Second Life
If you are new to Second Life or if you have never tried SL Sailing before, you may find the following quick summary helpful. The original notecard version available from within second life includes landmarks for all the clubs and a number of maps.
You’ll see the poster that dispenses notecards at most of the yacht clubs. If you are new and have no idea where a yacht club is, you can get a notecard from SL New Citizen’s Plaza
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Sailing in Second Life
You’ve probably seen all the sailboats bobbing on second life’s waterways. If you’re interested in learning more about SL Sailing, this notecard will give you a brief introduction.
Simply put, a lot of us believe that sailing is one of the most exciting and challenging things a person can do in Second Life.
Skeptical? Take a look at this clip from last year’s SL-Americas Cup Competition:
That’s what we do in SL Sailing!
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Can you actually sail in Second Life?
YES! Advanced sailboats in Second Life are more than just ‘point and steer’ vehicles. Using a complex propulsion algorithm based on Real World sailboat physics, SL Sailboats respond to wind and sail settings in a remarkably realistic manner. If you are familiar with sailboats in RL, you’ll be right at home taking the tiller here. In fact, over the past two years the winners of the major SL Sailboat Cup Races were people with substantial real sailing experience, not digital gamers. SL Sailing is such a good emulation, the winners were able to use their real-life knowlege and experience to get the best out of their vessels here.
But if you’ve never sailed in real life, don’t worry, SL sailing’s for you, too!
In fact, there are many people who first learned about sailing here in SL and then discovered they felt right at home when they got a chance to skipper a sailboat in real life!
So if you are interested, you’ll find it’s very easy to try out sailing in SL; you wont even get wet. Every Sunday at Noon, Starboards Yacht Club offers a free introductory sailing class, followed by an individualized sailing lesson with one of the instructors. Even the demo boats we use are free!
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The SL Sailing Community
The sailboats are great fun, and organized races and fun cruises take off from differnt locations many times every day in SL.
However, the best thing about SL Sailing really isn’t the boats — its the wonderful, global group of people who regularly get together to sail, to explore… or just hang out together on the dock. The sailors in Second Life are part of a real community made up of groups with different interests and skills.
There are several Yacht Clubs and Sailing Groups that reflect those common values in distinct ways.
Offshore from the SL Mainland lies The United Sailing Sims, a group of seven estates and 126 sims of navigable, interconnected waterways.
Here’s a map:
If you don’t mind classic boats, expansive ocean views and lots of tropical sunsets… you’ll probably agree the USS has some of the most beautiful residential sims available in all Second Life.
A lot of people must think so, since USS has SIX very active sailing clubs.
There’s always something new and exciting going on in USS!
Staboards Yacht Club ????
Nantucket Yacht Club ????
Fisher’s Island Yacht Club ????
Waypoint Yacht Club (Japanese) ????
Schiffsratten Yacht Club (German) ????
Les Glenans (French) ????
Italian Sailing Association (Italian)
On the SL Mainland, there are three you should visit:
Mowry Bay Yacht Club, which is one of the oldest sailing groups in SL,
and Free Adriatic, which is one of the newest!
As you’ll see from the map, they share extensive Linden waters in common.
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Weston Marina in Boogdolt is also one of the largest mainland marinas with a beautiful racecourse and almost 200 sims of protected water sailing available in the immediate area.????
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More stuff!
If you’d like to find out more about sailing in SL, and maybe even give sailing a try…
just stop by one of the places I’ve linked above and have a look around. The yacht clubs are full of information to get you going, and any of the skippers you run Into there will be happy to tell you more.
You’ll also find we have a pretty active web presence too, with lots of sailing information and lively discussions at our two principal websites: SLSAILING.ORG and SLSAILING.COM
OH! and I forgot to mention… every Sunday at 10AM SLCN also broadcasts the weekend sailboat regatta live from Starboards Yacht Club, starring Rear Commodore Marktwain White. You don’t even need to log in to Second Life to share in the fun!
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So, welcome to SL Sailing and…
We’ll see you on the water!
/ Jane Fossett, November 2008
Metaverse Sailing 