About the Naval Games

Free browser games for learning the work of the Officer of the Watch: handling a ship by orders to the helm, and knowing the rules of the road well enough to apply them without thinking.

Why these games exist

Bridge watchkeeping is learned by doing, but time on a real bridge, or in a full-mission simulator, is scarce. These games give you somewhere to practise between: to rehearse the words of a helm order until they come naturally, to see how a ship answers her rudder and engines, and to drill the collision regulations until you know which vessel gives way before you've finished asking yourself.

The games

The Bridge Sim

A conning trainer set on the bridge of a patrol vessel. You speak orders and the helmsman repeats them back, carries them out and reports them done, the way it's done in the navy. The ship turns and slows according to a model of her real handling. The bridge has two radars with target tracking, two electronic chart displays with routes and position fixing, a pelorus for bearings, an echo sounder and the ship's speed and heading displays. The sea around you is busy with ships that show the correct lights, sound fog signals and, if they're following the rules, alter course to avoid you. Real coastal areas are modelled from charts and elevation data, with their buoys and lights in their charted positions.

The Bridge Sim runs on a computer; speech recognition works best in Google Chrome. It also plays on phones and tablets held sideways, with touch controls.

Colregs Clash

A quiz on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, with optional sets on Canada's Collision Regulations and the US Inland Rules. Its questions are written from the text of the rules and cover every rule and annex, with diagrams of encounters, the lights and shapes you'd see from another vessel's bridge, and sound signals you can play. Each answer comes with the rule it rests on and a short explanation, so a wrong answer still teaches something. Play alone, or host a game for a class, who join from their own phones with a six-digit code.

Every question has a small ID in its corner. If one is unclear or wrong, tell us its ID and we'll fix it.

Accuracy

We take care that what the games teach matches the rules. But they are learning tools, not authorities: they are not approved training courses, they don't replace the official text of the regulations, and the charts shown in them are not for navigation. Chart images come from NOAA and the Canadian Hydrographic Service. See the terms of use.

Cost and advertising

The games are free to play. Some pages carry advertising to help pay for hosting; there are no ads inside the Bridge Sim or during a Colregs Clash question. How ads use cookies is explained in our privacy policy.

Contact

Questions, corrections, a question to flag, or an idea for the games: email navalgames@benjudson.com.