Hey guys,
after clocking more than 1,000h in MSFS 2020 I thought: “How about something to change up the usual pace? How about a bit of revolution?” And today I got the means for it - a TUG BOAT! Yes, I actually found the “Other” category in the Marketplace and bought myself a beautiful boat to drive around the seas in MSFS. And after learning the ropes on several lakes and rivers I started my journey to a) drive around this virtual world in a tug boat and b) finally deal with my raging thalassophobia (= fear of the sea).
So I just finished my first trip a few minutes ago. Of course I was utterly uneasy during the whole affair. Of course I had to force myself to look away from the coast now and then. But I survived. And I took some nice little screenshots. So how about I post my travels here - as well as my journey to conquer my fear of the sea!
This was me - leaving behind the relative safety of the Peenestrom and entering the Baltic Sea. After seeing planes for more than 1,000 hours it feels like a nice change to explore new camera angles for screenshots tbh!
The first obstacle was the exitway for the former Nuclear Power Plant at Lubmin. I had to drive away quite a bit from the coast to not run aground on these two strips of land.
Getting the hang of it I followed the coast west past the village of Lubmin itself. Here I noticed that I could get some nice landscape shots with this boat!
At Vierow I decided that I was done for today - it was 11pm already. So I faced the last challenge of this trip: Docking in a way that would look nice on a photo. I think I managed it quite well.
I hope you guys enjoyed this - unorthodox - trip in MSFS - or rather MSBS 2020. I will continue this project and I hope it won’t take me too long to get more comfortable on the seas.
Interesting! I assume you’d run into the issue of not being able to go under most of the current bridges. Head for the open seas! Keeps saying, “it’s just electrons on a screen!”
Regards
To be honest, I’m not sure why Microsoft isn’t creating a full “Earth Simulator” that would serve as the basis for all kinds of games and services:
Flight Simulator
Train Simulator
Boat Simulator
Truck Simulator
Racing
Imagine driving to your airport, fueling up your plane, loading cargo and pax, take off, land somewhere else, go for a drive, stop at a virtual shop (actually buy something that would then be shipped to you)… etc.
Beyond that, if they invested properly in keeping the base maps up to date, the physics and weather would be useful to exploration, shipping industries (many possible revenue streams).
Yeah, during my trial run on the Danube I ended up glitched halfway through a bridge. But I guess it will be easier on the seas as there are less objects (like bridges on rivers) that can’t be evaded.
First of all let me thank you for your comments, questions and kind words! Makes me even happier to share my journey and my progress in fighting the thalassophobia with you.
Starting from Vierow this morning I soon spotted a larger settlement in the distance. Turns out it was Ladebow, the harbour of Greifwald, a major city on the German Baltic Sea coast.
Not too far west I found the village of Riemserort hidden away in the coastal marshes. After a bit of research I was lucky not to land on the island north of it, as it turned out to be one of the most dangerous islands in all of Europe!
Apparently the island of Riems was a bioweapon test area for the Third Reich and is still closed to the public due to the risk of severe health hazards.
I think I will stay in Riemserort for now and continue this evening, if the weather permits.
I’ve always suspected that somewhere down the line thats their goal. Its an amazing idea anyway. There’s so much you could do with it outside of flight simulation.
A benefit of a long weekend (4 days yay!) is enough time to get some things done in the sim. So I jumped back into my tug boat and left Riemserort and Riems Island behind to cross over to Ruegen, the largest island in Germany.
I braved my fear for the first time and left the coast behind me. The reason: Well, the Rügenbrücke (Ruegen Bridge) is actually modelled in the sim. Only that you can’t drive below it as here is sits on the water. So I have to take the long route around the entire island. After hitting land again I passed the mouth of Schoritzer Wiek and continued along the eastern coast.
After about an hour I decided to take a rest, so I approached the harbour of Lauterbach. On the way I was intercepted - by an airliner circling and divebombing me repeatedly, probably because they were pretty confused about what they saw. If you don’t have the addon installed, you won’t see the tug boat. You will see a bog-standard Beechcraft Bonanza driving across the water at 14kn max. But it was quite the spectacle, atleast for me!
At first I was unsure if today would be such a good day for boating as we had quite the strong winds this morning. But in the afternoon I tried nonetheless and it was quite the nice experience! Here we are leaving Lauterbach and passing Insel Vilm (“Vilm Island”) on our right.
Originally I thought that this was the eastern coastline of the bay we were in, yet it was just a headland called “Reddewitzer Hoft”. Apparently there is a Lookout Tower for tourists here, we got a tiny cottage instead (fairly central if you look out of the leftmost window).
After reaching the far side of the bay we drove past the Zickerberg. As the sun began to set I decided to steer into the next harbour, which was Thiessow, located a bit east of us.
To reach Thiessow we had to enter the ZIckersee through a narrow gap between the main part of the island and the peninsula on which Kleinzicker is located on.
Yes, this can happen if you navigate a ship from the bridge without the ability to have a good top-down view of your harbour entrance: You get stuck. So I just moored myself right here for convenience’s sake (not because I was glitched into the texture and was bouncing back and forth, no no…)
