Naval Games

Naval Games

Free games for learning to handle a ship and to keep the rules of the road. Play them in your browser, on a computer or a phone, with nothing to install.

The view forward from a patrol vessel's bridge, with its consoles and windows

The Bridge Sim

Take the con of a patrol vessel. Give the helm your orders out loud ("port 20", "half ahead both engines", "steer 270") and handle her among traffic, fog and the coast.

Play the Bridge Sim
A Colregs Clash question with four coloured answers

Colregs Clash

The rules of the road against the clock. Play alone, or host a game your friends or your class join from their phones.

Play Colregs Clash

What are the Naval Games?

Naval Games are training games for anyone learning to stand a watch at sea: naval officers under training, merchant navy cadets, yacht skippers studying for a licence, and anyone curious about how ships are driven. Each game practises one part of the job of the Officer of the Watch, the person on the bridge responsible for the ship's safe navigation.

The Bridge Sim: conning by voice

On a real warship the officer conning the ship doesn't touch the wheel. They give orders to the helmsman, who repeats each one back, carries it out and reports when it's done. The Bridge Sim works the same way: you speak your orders into your microphone and the helm answers, following real naval procedure.

  • Wheel and engine orders: rudder angles, ordered courses, engine telegraph settings and sound signals.
  • Working bridge instruments: two radars with tracking (ARPA), electronic charts with routes and position fixing, a pelorus for visual bearings, an echo sounder, and the speed and heading displays.
  • Real waters: sail charted areas of the British Columbia coast and Halifax, with real buoys and lights, or the open ocean.
  • Traffic that keeps the rules: other ships cross, overtake and meet you head-on, by day, at night and in fog, showing the correct lights and sounding the correct signals.
  • Game mode: score points for clear orders, safe passing distances and keeping to your track, and earn your next rank.

Voice orders work best in Google Chrome on a computer. On a phone or tablet, turn it sideways: you walk the bridge with an on-screen thumb stick and use the electronic chart with touch.

Colregs Clash: the rules of the road quiz

The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (the COLREGs) are the rules every vessel follows to avoid collision: who gives way, which lights and shapes to show, and which sound signals to make. Colregs Clash turns them into a fast multiple-choice quiz. Answer quickly for more points, keep a run of right answers going, and finish with a rank from Acting Sub-Lieutenant to Lieutenant-Commander.

  • About 470 questions covering every rule, from Rule 1 to the annexes, including Part F.
  • Diagrams of crossing and overtaking situations, vessels' lights at night, day shapes, and sound signals you can listen to.
  • Canadian and US rules: optional questions on Canada's Collision Regulations and the US Inland Navigation Rules.
  • Play together: a host shares a six-digit code, and players join from any phone or computer. It's made for classrooms and mess decks.

New to the rules? Read our plain-English guide to the rules of the road first.

A training aid, not a substitute

These games help you learn and practise, but they aren't approved training courses, and the charts shown in them aren't for navigation. Always use the official text of the rules, official charts and your organisation's training at sea. Read more about the Naval Games.