When you press "Create Cruise" the boat selection dialog will appear, under this dialog there are four tabs which set the specific details of the new cruise, you can select the boat to use, location to start from, the weather to have and also the graphic options to start the cruise with.
Pressing the "Boat" tab will show the boat selection form below.
On this screen you can select the boat by name, by type and by length.
When you select the type from the type box only boats of this type will appear on the upper list, and also when you select length only boats of this length and type will be shown.
After selecting the boat from the list above, the properties of this boat will be shown below and its picture will appear above.
You can add more boats to Virtual Sailor by downloading them from the internet.
Pressing the "Location" tab will show the position selection form below.
On the right side you see a list of existing sceneries, selecting any of them will center the map around this area, you can also zoom in and out and pan the map pressing the left mouse button and dragging it until you find the scenery you wish to use.
Sceneries in this map may appear in layers, in Virtual Sailor you can have overlapping sceneries, and detail sceneries, to select the one you wish to use click on the area that best suits the scenery you want, and the one with highest detail will be selected.
You can add more sceneries to Virtual Sailor by downloading them from the internet, or by importing digital topographic maps downloaded from the internet.
Pressing the "Weather" tab will show the weather selection form below.
This screen has also three tabs of its own, one for selecting current weather and time, the second for selecting forecast weather and time, and the third for selecting time and date.
Selecting weather or forecast show this dialog, in this dialog you select all aspects of weather you can control in VS, this includes sea and atmospheric conditions.
Setting the time of day will allow you set weather changes between start time and forecast time, the sea and atmospheric conditions will change incrementally between these times until the time of forecast arrives, then a new forecast will be generated automatically.
Virtual Sailor also has changing currents and tides, the tide will change according to time of day, and its magnitude is set by the selection in the weather dialog above, the current is adjustable also but is not configured as a tidal current, you may set it to any direction and magnitude of your choice.
You can also shut down the weather forecast mechanism by clearing this option in the graphic settings screen.
Selecting the date will show the following screen.
This screen will allow you to set time of day and exact date and year, this will set the sun, moon and stars to the exact orientation they have in the sky depending of time and the location you are in.
Virtual Sailor has been made to show accurate celestial bodies, and was calibrated according to actual astronomical charts, small errors may appear now and then, these depend on the accuracy of the scenery used.
A virtual sextant was provided inside the program for the purpose of virtual celestial navigation, it was tested and found to have acceptable level of error like the one found in real observations.
Virtual Sailor should not be used for actual navigation, the author of this program is not responsible for any direct or indirect outcome of using Virtual Sailor for real world navigation.
Selecting the "Graphics" tab will show the graphic settings of the program, see more on this below.
When you are ready to start the selected cruise press "Sail now".