FairWinds Overview

FairWinds is a virtual sailing platform that combines navigation strategy and sailing physics with real-time weather, competitive multiplayer racing, and world exploration.

Absolute Basics

• FairWinds is a persistent sailing simulator. The servers will continuously simulate your boat whether you are online or offline. You don't need to have the race viewer open. Many people have virtually sailed around the world and across every ocean over many months.
• Browser-based - no apps or downloads. Works in all modern browsers on all platforms. There is no 'app' yet, but the web view on mobile is 'mobile designed' and is excellent on most phones.
• Multi-lingual - FW supports English, French, and Italian languages. More available upon request. Be sure to select your language preference in the profile page.
• Real-time Weather Data - NOAA GFS 0.25° wind forecast updates in FW every 6 hours: 00z, 06z, 12z, 18z. Forecasts aren't released until ~4 hours after forecast time (e.g. 00z data is available at 0400z). Some regions also contain currents at different regional resolution. Wind and current data and forecast status: https://fairwinds.world/wind
• NMEA Data - For NMEA enabled races, a NMEA port is assigned to each race and each boat. Every race has a 'detail' page where the NMEA port is listed. For Pro users NMEA is available on all races. For basic accounts it is available on all practice races and for 1 credit in official content.
• Membership - Monthly and Annual subscriptions (aka "Pro") get you access to everything in the platform. No upsells. You can also buy individual 'race credits' to fully unlock Pro races and NMEA without a subscription. See https://fairwinds.world/profile/subscription
• Racing and Exploration - Community events are a great way to get started racing. FairWinds also has a number of 'expeditions' — done at your own pace and usually following a theme (e.g. 'follow in the path of Joshua Slocum').

What's in the Docs

• Getting Started — quickstart guide
• Avoid the Rocks — crash detection and safe navigation
• Rhumb vs Great Circle — understanding routing geometry
• Routing - How It Works — how routing works in FairWinds
• Currents — sailing with ocean currents

Advanced Topics

(Coming soon)

• Routing with currents
• How routers work and the FW internal router
• Getting Good & Winning