This brings back some memories! I used to play the Ancient Art of War at Sea on my dad's Mac Plus as a kid. Having never sailed, it was fun to learn about tacking while trying to broadside spanish galleons. Years later, I lied about my experience to convince a resort to let me check out a tiny catamaran. I made it back to shore!

One recommendation: make the boats not turn quite so fast. It allows you to outmaneuver other vessels by planning ahead or gaining speed ahead of time.

I still don't know much about sailing, but I have a lot of kitesurfing experience. Do boats really travel that slowly downwind? I assume that crosswind is faster, but downwind should still move at the speed of the wind.

I need to check out that game, I’ve sunk countless hours into the 2004 Sid Meiers games. Also lying to sail a catamaran successfully back to shore is such a pirate thing to do :) you’re ready for TinyWind

Noted on the ship turn speeds, I’ve been playing around with larger ships having slower turn radii but I do want the naval combat to have more of a planning element (setup upwind, strafe run and fire, etc)

Let me look into the boat speeds in different wind conditions. I know beam reach/crosswind is faster than parachuting downwind but maybe my downwind speed is too slow now