Merra Sea Trial puts you at the helm of a 10 m Scottish inshore creel boat. Steam out to a fleet, lay the buoy alongside the hauler, haul 18 creels, steam clear and shoot them again, in seas from a flat calm to a gale. As you go it shows how waves, wind, tide, the load on the hauler, the creel stack and a live-catch deck tank change her stability, and how they can combine to capsize her.

What you can try

• Pick a sea state from the Beaufort scale (Force 0–9, sheltered inshore or open coast, with or without a swell).
• Steer with the on-screen wheel and throttle, including astern to stop at the buoy.
• Haul a fleet and watch the load on the hauler, the heel it causes and the creels hanging in deeper water.
• Make a creel fast on the bottom, and see why easing off or cutting away matters.
• Put a deck tank on, fill it and move it around, and watch the list, trim and stability change.
• Stand at the helm in the wheelhouse view and try to keep your balance.
• Pause a trip and carry on later; download the track, event log and motion data.
• Open Live Attitude on a phone (or scan the QR code in the simulator) and tilt the phone: the boat follows, using the phone's own motion sensors. It can be installed on the phone as an app.

Important

Sea Trial is a simplified teaching model of a generic boat with invented but plausible figures. It is not a stability assessment, and it must not be used to judge whether any real vessel is safe or how it should be loaded or handled.

The Merra approach

Merra combines simulation with low-cost sensors and simple apps, so that real-world data can test the models and the results become decision support people can use. Sea Trial is built to be driven, in future, by real vessel track and motion data from Merra-track.