A sailing ship is pushed forward by wind pressure on its sails, with a fore-and-aft or square rig determining how close to the wind it can point; captains describe headings relative to the wind as "points of sail," from close-hauled through reaching to running. The hull's maximum practical speed is limited by its waterline length — wave drag rises sharply once the bow and stern wave crests match the hull length, a limit known as hull speed. Wind heels the ship over sideways while waves make it pitch (bow/stern) and roll (port/starboard), and a moving hull drags a Kelvin wake pattern behind it. This scene approximates that physics with a shader-driven ocean surface and a wind-billowed sail rig.

• Hull speed roughly follows 1.34 × √(waterline length in feet) knots
• Points of sail range from close-hauled (~45° off the wind) to running downwind
• Beaufort sea states range from calm (<0.1 m waves) to storm (>9 m waves)
• A ship's Kelvin wake forms a characteristic ~39° half-angle chevron pattern
• Historic square-riggers favored downwind sailing; modern fore-and-aft rigs sail closer to the wind
• Heeling angle grows with wind pressure on the sails and is resisted by hull ballast
• Apparent wind (felt aboard) differs from true wind due to the ship's own forward motion