Wolf systems
Sailing Mode
A yacht’s helm station across the bottom of the screen: wind instruments, depth, a chartplotter, and an autopilot that sails your boat to a place, round the land and upwind, tacking as it goes.
Wolf Territories only. This needs WolfViewer or WolfStorm on a Wolf Territories region. On other grids the menu items, buttons and panels are not shown at all.
Other viewers sail boats with the normal keys, exactly as before.
Overview
Screenshot coming soon
A picture of Sailing Mode at the helm will go here. Everything on this page is already in WolfViewer and WolfStorm.
Turning it on
- World > Sailing Mode. The helm station takes the bottom of the screen and the normal toolbar is put away while it shows (the Toolbar icon in the bottom-right corner brings it back).
- The boat icon in the bottom-right corner shows or hides it. Hidden, Sailing Mode and the autopilot keep sailing.
- EXIT leaves Sailing Mode; HELP opens the quick guide.
How it sails your boat
Like Flight Mode, the autopilot never moves the boat itself: it presses the helm and motor keys your boat already answers, so the boat’s own script does the sailing. Turning the wheel or pressing a helm key puts the autopilot to standby.
The wind is the region’s own wind, the same one llWind() gives scripts.
The instruments
Along the top
Knobs turn with the mouse wheel over them, or by clicking their left or right half; Shift turns the heading and speed knobs ten times as fast. Hover anything for a tip.
| Control | What it does |
|---|---|
| MASTER WARNING / CAUTION | Light up with an alarm. Press to cancel them. |
| TRACK | Sail to the destination set on the flight computer (CDU), round the land, tacking on the laylines. |
| HEADING, HDG knob and HDG | Steer the selected compass heading. |
| WIND ANGLE, TWA knob and WIND | Hold an angle to the true wind, in degrees off the bow: S means the wind is on the starboard side, P on the port side. WIND starts from the angle you are sailing now. |
| TACK | Tack (or gybe) through the wind to the other side. |
| MOTOR, SPEED and SPD knob | Hold the selected speed, in knots, with your motor keys. |
| AUTO | The autopilot on, or to standby. |
| RANGE | The chartplotter's range, in nautical miles. |
| PLAN | The chartplotter: PLAN (the whole route, north up) or CHART (course up, around you). |
| MAP | The World Map, zoomed to the whole trip: the route and where you are on it. |
| CLUB | Opens the Wolf Territories Grid Sailing Club page on this website. |
| PANEL | Show or hide the panel behind the instruments. |
| HELP | The quick guide. |
| EXIT | Leave Sailing Mode. |
The helm station
Wind
The black needle is the apparent wind, what the sails feel; the navy T is the true wind. The green and red sectors are the close-hauled angles.
Boat speed, depth, VMG and heel
The boat's speed, the depth in metres under the hull, VMG (how fast you are closing on the waypoint) and how far the boat heels.
Chartplotter
CHART: course up, around you. PLAN: the whole route on the world map, where you are on it and how far there is to go. Click the chart, or PLAN, to switch.
Helm (the wheel)
Drag left or right to steer to port or starboard; it centres when you let go. Turning it puts the autopilot to standby.
Motor lever (red)
Push up for ahead (AHD), down for astern (AST); it springs back. It uses your motor keys.
SAIL and ENG buttons
SAIL says your boat's sail command (the button is labelled with it: RAISE to start with). ENG says your engine command.
The autopilot
Sail to a place
- Sit at your boat’s helm.
- Click the CDU screen (bottom right) and type where to go:
REGION/X/Y, then Enter. JustREGIONmeans its middle. Or pick a place on the World Map, then press <MAP DEST on the CDU. - The route goes round the land (magenta on the chart). It is planned through water deeper than your boat’s DRAFT, and planned again as more of the sea loads in.
- Press TRACK, then AUTO. Upwind it beats to the mark, tacking on the laylines (the blue dashed lines).
Turning the wheel or a helm key puts it to standby.
Other ways to steer
| Button | What it holds |
|---|---|
| HDG | a compass heading (set it with the knob) |
| WIND | the angle to the wind you have now |
| TACK | goes through the wind to the other side |
| MOTOR | the SPEED, with your motor keys |
Alarms
SHALLOW WATER, SHOAL AHEAD and COLLISION AHEAD: the autopilot turns away to starboard and plans the route again.
Your boat and scripts
Press CTL on the CDU for the BOAT CONTROLS page; the keys beside each line change it.
| Line | What it sets | To start with |
|---|---|---|
| TACK ANGLE | How close to the wind the boat sails when the autopilot beats upwind, in degrees off the true wind. | 45° |
| AUTO LEARN | Turns reversed keys round by itself while the autopilot steers (only for this session). | ON |
| DRAFT | How deep the keel is. Water shallower than this counts as land to the route and the shoal alarm. | 1.5 m |
| RUDDER | Which keys steer: UP/DN ARROW, L/R ARROW, PGUP/PGDN, SHIFT L/R or NONE. | L/R ARROW |
| LEFT KEY | PORT or STBD: which way round the steering keys work. | PORT |
| MOTOR | Which keys drive the motor (the same choices). | PGUP/PGDN |
| THR TYPE | STEP (one notch a press) or HOLD (power while held), and REV for reversed. | STEP |
| SAIL CMD and CHANNEL | What the SAIL button says, and on which channel (0 = said aloud). | "raise" on channel 0 |
| ENGINE CMD and CHANNEL | What the ENG button says, and its channel. This is the same engine command Flight Mode uses. | "start" on channel 0 |
To change a command, type it on the CDU, then press the key beside SAIL CMD or ENGINE CMD. An empty command shows as dashes, and the button then posts “SAIL CMD NOT SET” instead of saying anything.
For boat makers
- Steer and drive from the keys as usual (
llTakeControlsandcontrol()): the left and right arrows arrive asCONTROL_ROT_LEFT/CONTROL_ROT_RIGHT, Page Up / Page Down asCONTROL_UP/CONTROL_DOWN. The autopilot holds exactly those. - The SAIL and ENG buttons are chat from the sailor on the channel they set (0 by default). Many boats already raise their sail on “raise”; if yours uses another word, tell your sailors so they can set it on the BOAT CONTROLS page.
- Read the wind as the deck does, from the region:
llWind(ZERO_VECTOR).
Racing, regattas and cruises: see the Wolf Territories Grid Sailing Club.