My conversion to SL sailing / boating enthusiast is well-documented, at least within these pages. Admittedly, I have yet to get myself sorted with a sailboat other than my premium gift Exotix, but that’s largely because I’ve yet to find something I really like.
Instead, I’ve been motoring about Blake Sea and elsewhere aboard my E-Tech Sparrow 4, which I re-named Lady of Calas. At the time I purchased the boat, it was on a special offer at L$399. The reason for the offer was that Envy Melody, E-Tech’s founder and creator, has just overhauled the build and improved upon the original. Even so, the price represented remarkable value – and I have to thank Spikey (again) for pointing it out to me.
Now Envy has another boat on promotional offer – at 70% off the list price (L$650). The model in question is the Silverstone, a name which is sure to get my attention, given I am a Formula 1 fan 🙂 . Like the Sparrow, this has been extensively overhauled and is now at version 4.0 which sees the total LI for the vessel substantially reduced from 256 to 132. This actually undercuts the Sparrow by some 25 LI; not bad for a vessel which is roughly twice the length of the Sparrow.
Like the Sparrow, the Silverstone comes in a choice of hull colours (although 5 are on offer here), these being charcoal, royal blue, red, white and pink. As I opted for red for Lady of Calas, I decided to stick with the same for the Silverstone, which I’ve also re-christened Lady of Calas 2, given it is unlikely I’ll have both rezzed at the same time.
Unlike the Sparrow, the Silverstone has a fully enclosed cabin / cockpit which offers plenty of room for seating up to eight passengers. The aft deck offers additional seating and a trio of sun loungers located above the fantail. Forward of the main cabin is a further sun lounger atop what appears to be a forward cabin, but which is in fact unused space.
As the driver, I’d have liked somewhere to sit down when piloting the boat, but like the Sparrow, the owner has to stand and steer. A minor niggle, admittedly, but my little feet tire easily…
In terms of handling, I have to say I found the Silverstone a bit of a handful at times. While not overly large compared to some other boats, it is sufficiently long enough and the default camera position located far enough back that it is not given to making fine adjustments to turns, which is particularly noticeable when trying to dock. There’s also no HUD with this model, which might make it a little hard to judge comparative speeds when working up through the gears and running with the throttle open. Fortunately, if you have an E-Tech HUD, it should work with Silverstone as well as any other vessel.
Once at sea, the boat handled well. As with the Sparrow, region crossings were handled reasonably well given the vagaries involved, and in an outing which took me from east the west and back across Blake Sea, I encountered few issues, although these could be as much down to tweaks to the server code as much as anything intrinsic to the boat’s scripting.
Extras with the Silverstone are not as extensive as with the Sparrow, and from my perspective this is fine, as I never actually rezzed any of the Sparrow’s extras beyond demonstrating them. There is, however, some very nice interior lighting effects which let the Silverstone look very attractive and cosy at night.
If there is one thing with the new boat that is going to take a bit of getting used to, it is its size; the revised terrace / quay at home was more than adequate for the Sparrow, but it is completely overwhelmed by the Silverstone! Nevertheless, Lady of Calas 2 is going to remain rezzed yet a while. Big she may well be, comparatively speaking, but I’m already growing accustomed to her lines 🙂 .
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
It is indeed a lovely build and now much easy to spot your home then before;)
And you should really try to do a Lcc or topless sailors cruise, no ned to be a sailing boat to do them, only assure you don’t carry scripts or the less possible ones, due to the several (sometimes almost an hundred) cross sims you will encounter!
And both groups are free to join, offer several cruises along a week and are becoming increasingly popular as LL did in fact fix cross sims (I don’t recall having any crash due to cross sims since more then a month ago, and i do cross a lot every day;))!
Now about sailing, i tend to distinguish 2 kinds of engines, the one i consider the most easy to understand for a non real life sailor, that is also considered the less laggy and its available for free to any that wish to build your own sailing boat, as well as equipping some of the most famous sailing boats of Sl, the b wind script and the ones that try to emulate as more realistic as possible Rl, while avoiding also the lag, being the fizz the ultimate emulator of that (also a free kit available to any that wishes to build your own boats using it)!
As im no racer i tend to build only using the b wind and sail most cruises with boats that use it but the feeling of sailing and emotions one gets when doing so, can only feel them, fully, when i sail the fizz on expert mode, cause there, i do feel like every lil step i made towards taking the boat to its course its a victory on itself (much harder to sail it alone then with a crew member btw!).
Same can be said for other builders and other scripts, but i only mention the ones that any can get for free and can use to build its own boat!
But there is no lack of free, copy, full amazing sailing boats on several yacht clubs around, using both or even diff kinds of scripts!
And that the B wind, is no less funny;)
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There was further work on region crossings towards the of the year, including fixes for a number of ugly bugs, as per my week project reports. I’ve not actually been out on the water since November, so this was the first time in a while, and in a new cruiser.
Sailing-wise, my issue isn’t with the technicalities of sailing, wind or racing; rather I’ve yet to find one that really appeals to my eye and screams “buy me!” whenever I look at it. I’m also now way too lazy to get into building my own boats.
Topless cruises? I think I’ll give those a miss, sorry. I’m more into the company of a few friends when on the water, or using the boat as a means of coastal exploration on my own.
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Whenever the reason, to enhance the amazing possibilities of Second Life as a meaning of virtual ,exploring and enjoying, the use of veihcles, is a more then well worth effort, as many still never did realize how LL did real fix so much on that chapter and how Second Life is unique in this subject!
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Indeed. Something I’ll be touching upon in at least one (if not more!) blog posts 🙂 .
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