A sailing simulator for the revival of the Tagus River nautical heritage

Virtual museums lack the tangible experience of traditional exhibitions, but excel in accessibility, allowing global audiences to engage with cultural heritage interactively and at their own pace. They also play a vital role in safeguarding artifacts in digital form, ensuring their preservation for future generations. This article presents the development of a 3D sailing simulator designed to preserve and revive Portuguese nautical heritage by virtually reconstructing traditional Tagus River sailboats, including the Falua and the Muleta fishing boat, and allowing to sail them. The 3D models, created in Blender using Primitive-Based Modeling, were optimized for real-time performance while retaining historical accuracy. A key challenge was balancing visual realism with computational efficiency to enable physics-based simulation in Unity. The simulator integrates aerodynamic and hydrodynamic modeling to replicate realistic interactions between sails, wind, and water, providing an engaging and hands-on experience. It reproduces the sailing dynamics of the Falua across all points of sail and the unique sideways trawling technique of the Muleta , while also allowing users to experiment with sail configurations and wind conditions. In doing so, the project demonstrates how modern digital technologies can both preserve intangible maritime practices and offer immersive educational experiences that foster appreciation of cultural heritage.