🧪 Northstar Ferry — 2D Helm Simulator

This 2D companion drives the same helm model as the 3D Northstar Ferry through a plain top-down chart: throttle sets engine thrust against quadratic-plus-linear water drag, the rudder's turning authority scales with speed the way a real vessel's does (a stationary rudder does nothing), and the vessel's list is the live sum of wave-driven roll, turn-induced heel, wind heel and deck-load heel — the same four terms the 3D engine sums, read here off a side-mounted heel gauge instead of a tilting hull. A wake trail streams from the stern once way is on, navigation buoys and the harbor pier sit at the same world coordinates as the 3D scene, and switching the sea-state scenario (harbor/calm/rough/storm) changes wave amplitude, wind speed and current exactly as it does in the 3D version.