INTRODUCTION Sailing is a game of strategy and simulation designed to capture the thrill of competing in top-level yachting competitions. You will need all your wits about you as you design your boat to take part in this international challenge and that's before you even start racing! As you take to the water ploughing through 20 foot waves, you can see your opponent rounding the bouy ahead. Have you got the skill to catch up? Is your design ill-suited to the conditions? It's all in your hands. Prepare yourself for the sail of the century! LOADING INSTRUCTIONS CBM64 Tape: Press SHIFT and RUN/STOP together, then start tape. CBM64 Disk: Type LOAD"*",8,1 and then RETURN. FOR THOSE WITHOUT A JOYSTICK Q = up A = down O = left P = right SPACE = fire OTHER KEYS Commodore: Change Level = F5 Sound on/off = F3 Music on/off = F1 Pause/Unpause = RUN/STOP STARTING UP From the initial screen of the game you must decide what level to start at and whether you want the sound effects and music on or off. The level represents at what stage you enter the competition and how long you have to reach the top. After deciding on the above conditions, pressing fire moves you to the design screen. DESIGN This screen displays a blueprint of your ship design and allows you to modify this to suit the weather conditions (the long-range weather forecast scrolls along the bottom of the screen). After naming your boat (Keyboard) and choosing your country you get down to the serious business of designing the boat. Using joystick or keyboard you can change the Overall Length (LOA), Waterline Length (LWL), Freeboard and Mast Length as well as addding wings to your keel and changing the Hull Material. Choosing the correct design for the weather that you will experience involves careful thought. For instance increasing the length will increase your sail area but decrease your manoeuvrability. Adding wings will increase your stability but also increase your drag through the water. You will just have to experiment with different designs in different conditions in orger to best harness the elements. In a close race having a slightly better design could mean the difference between victory and defeat. When the design is to your satisfaction select RACES and press fire to move on to the competition proper. LEAGUE TABLE At the start of each race you will be presented with a league table showing your present standing highlighted and also your next prospective opponent highlighted. This is because in the lower positions you have the option of challenging up to 2 places above you by moving the cursor up/down. To help you to decide who to challenge you may view a blueprint of your opponent by selecting left/right. Fire then returns you to the league table. This also enables you to observe how different ship designs fare in different weather conditions. Once you have selected your opposition, pressing fire catapults you into your boat on the starting line abreast of your opponent and heading for the first buoy. RACING The display throughout the race is split into 2 halves. The top half shows the view from the prow out over the sea where you can see your opponent (if he is ahead of you). The bottom half contains your gauges which are vital to getting the best from your boat. On the left are the wind gauges; absolute wind speedometer and the relative wind direction meter which shows the relative incidence of the wind on the sails which needs close monitoring. In the centre the 2 gauges show your heading and boat speed while on the right the radar shows your position on the course (North is at the top of the screen). Your boat is depicted by a flashing cross while your opponents boat appears as a non-flashing cross. Also on the screen are the 3 buoys with the next bouy for you to round flashing. Buoys must always be rounded anti-clockwise - aim to the right! The bottom line shows the current status of your spinnaker sail - the big billowing sail that is used to obtain more power with a following wind. Control is by joystick - left/right controls the hand on the tiller and the spinnaker is hoisted/lowered by "winching" it up and down. This is achieved by pressing fire and then rotating the joystick lever anti-clockwise for up and clockwise for down. If playing with a keyboard this means pressing up, right, down, left, up etc. in quick succession for clockwise and the reverse for anti-clockwise - with practice sail changes can be achieved fairly rapidly. While winding you cannot control the direction and so the quicker you can change the sail the less you will slew off course - the wind is constantly trying to turn the boat one way or the other. As soon as one boat has successfully completed the course or been disqualified (you may not go outside the bounds of your radar) the game jumps back to the league table. After 5 days of racing you will be given 1 week to re-adjust your rig for the next bout of racing, and at the end of the competition you will be given a score to classify your performance. HAPPY SAILING! NOTE: In trying to make this game as playable as possible a certain amount of licence has been taken enabling us to incorporate features which would not be available to the professional yachtsman such as boat speedometers. Also the action has been highly condensed to emphasize the ups and downs of sailing. It is hoped that these additions improve the playability of the game and in some small way, bring the game to life. TERMINOLOGY L.O.A. - Length Overall L.W.L. - Waterline Length Freeboard - Height of side of boat from waterline to deck. Wings - A winged keel increases the stability of the boat and enables the boat to capture more power from the wind on a tack. Spinnaker - the spinnaker is a parachute-like sail which can be carried downwind on a reach - i.e. a leg where the wind is behind you. SAILING TIPS Design is very important and can make a big difference to the handling of your boat. It is a good idea to select the top level just to have a look at the designs of the top boats as these have the best designs. When racing, tacks are all-important and especially in the winward legs (into the wind). It pays to hunt for the wind shifts to try to achieve a better tack-line. Also, the spinnaker should be used sparingly, especially in high winds. Use it only if the wind is right behind you. It is up to the player to experiment with the design of the boat to see what effects the various variables have. As an example; increasing the L.O.A. increases the sail area and the water drag but decreases the manoeuvrability. When rounding a buoy, ensure that you approach it at an angle which gives you room to turn the other side. If you try to get too close, you may over-run badly. To add to the excitement of the game, the wind drag and water drag have been kept very low enabling a well-designed boat to equal or even exceed wind speed When tacking (a feat usually only achieved in ice-yachting). If you do exceed the wind speed then the relative wind direction can give a misleading reading if you turn so that you are travelling with the wind but faster than the wind. This will give you a relative wind direction of against you and a true wind direction of behind you. This will cause you to slow down until the relative wind direction is once more behind you. The true heading of the wind should be remembered at all times to enable you to deploy your spinnaker when necessary.