Day 56: Sailing

Guess what I did today? Yep, I went sailing at the Starboards Yacht Club, next to the Second Life Hollywood I mentioned in a previous entry. (OK, I totally cheated and made 2 entries out of this single location, but its a really cool location!)

Starboards offers beginner sailing lessions on Sundays at noon, which starts with a quick lecture on the basics, followed by an instructor taking you out on the water. I wont name names (unless you are reading this and want me to :) ), but I had the best instructor who showed us the ropes and was patient with me, even though I ran us off the sim a few times, hit some boats, and nearly drowned us all (OK, just kidding, you cant drown, but I managed to dump myself into the water).

Just before we got into our boats, the instructor told us to right click on ourselves, and select Take Off/Detach All. *Yikes* Did I hear that correctly? Did they just ask the Queen of Attachments to "Detach All"? I would be like...naked! (Yes, a couple of the guys did suggest naked sailing :P) Today's outfit had a mere 16 attachments, with who knows how many prims. And that doesnt even count the cloths I was wearing :) There is a very good reason for removing all your attachments: since the boats are heavily scripted, attachments would cause considerable lag. Its bad for your sailing performance, and bad for the sim as a whole. So after many unhappy faces :( and pouting, I reluctantly stripped down to a single static prim hair with about 5 prims. I looked like a newbie again! :P

(BTW, I went back later in the evening to takes these photos, with ALL attachments in place! :) ).



We start by renting a Tako sailboat, which is a heavily scripted vehicle designed to respond to the wind like a real sailboat. The latest Takos are free to rent for an hour, or can be purchased for $250L (less that $1 US dollar). So you can try it all for free and see if sailing is something you would like to do in SL.



The Tako comes with 2 customized HUDs which attach to your display. These help you sail the boat by showing you the wind and sail conditions. I wont go into details here, but for a beginner like me, its all about keeping the heading out of the "red" zone (which stalls the boat), and trimming the sails properly so we can go fast. Its a lot of fun to sail around the yacht club and the nearby islands.

Of course, once you get good enough, you can join in one of the sailboat races and compete against other sailors! And the best part is that Starboards Yacht Club is just a bunch of fun loving folks who enjoy sailing and Second Life. I had fun just hanging out with them and chatting. But be warned, they have a bad reputation for shooting weird things out of cannons. :)

To get to the Starboards Yacht Club, Search under Places for "starboards". Hollywood (97,149,25).



If you just want a sailboat to play with around your beachhouse, but dont want to plunk down the $250L (if you have a beachhouse, $250L shouldnt be a problem :P), check out Home of the Flying Tako Sailboat. You can get the older version of the Tako sailboat here for free. The catch is that the HUD on the newer version is MUCH better! I would recommend renting the newer Takos for an hour (for free) just to see the difference.

They also sell kites and a mini blimp here. Mental note: need to come back here to check these out later :) To go to Home of the Flying Tako Sailboat, Search under Places for "tako".



And did you like the sailor outfit I made for today? Once you have a base of clothing items, you can start re-tinting them for different things. This is basically the Barbie Outfit retextured with a white and navy blue design. I just wasnt sure whether sailors wore white heels or boots, so to be on the safe side, I wore the heels ;P

On top of being a fun thing to do in SL, sailing is something you can do with friends as well. The Tako seats multiple people (I think up to 6). And there are even ways to share your HUD with the passengers. What better thing to do on a date than to go on a sunset cruise? Just ask your date to click World/Force Sun/Sunset :P



And after a long day sailing, you can relax on the docks and watch the beautiful sunset. If you miss it, just click World/Force Sun/Sunset to try again :)