This is indeed a little bit more than a game.
They adapted this game for planning and plotting simulation as you can couple another PC with Navigation Software to the software. I myself am not a big fan of wingps (dutch company who is or was also behind ship simulator) but I use Maxsea owned by Furuno on my own sailboat and due to the NMEA protecol (used over a normal serial port) you could probably train with that aswell.
What you can do with this software is sail out polar diagraphs and with those you can plan the optimal cource for you sailboat in the wind. Especialy in the mega yacht bussiness this is intresting (not really on smaller scale) as you can set the software to even control the winches and basicaly sail automaticly...
That said lets move to sailsimulator:
I have used this in the past, may even have a cd of it laying around somewhere. As all other software I have ever seen it compleatly misses simulating hydrodynamics. Bether said its not even trying...
The underlaying engine is the same as VS5 which has the same dumbed down mechanics.
That said, as it focuses on sailing and as such is more indepth as VS5 and the fact that there is simply no other product on the market like this... Well yeah in the land of the blind is the one eyed guy king as we say in holland...
For sailing simulating (like with sails) it is the best product... Why? There is no other product...
Is it good? Well its better than nothing but to be honnest its far from the real thing. I much prefer the real thing as trimming IRL is pretty complicated, even on the steel round the world sailer I have... It gets especialy complicated when the boomvang breaks in 20 pieces and this year was the first year we did not have to cope with that issue.
This is the reason that multiplayer picks up in the winter. People much prefer to do the real thing. Most have a small boat and can be out of the harbour and sails up in 20 minutes. I for a chance need 4 days to kit out the boat and prepare for one trip, it does not matter how long, then take about 4 days afterwards to safely keep the boat stored in the harbour.
So if you are an average sailor and can do the real thing why do the viritual thing? thats why. Now a lot of people are preparing for winter around this time. Even though they are not sailing they dont have time to play. Rig maintenance, engine maintenance, antifreeze everywhere you name it. Its maintenance season. But after it should pick up. People start missing the real thing and start to do the next best thing...
The mayority of the playerbase is Dutch. Simply because a lot of Dutchies have sailboats. Come to NL and you will be surprised how many harbors for little boats you find. This also means that you have to deal with Dutch stubbourness. Dutchies do not honey you, they straight up tell you whats on their mind. If they at that point think you are behaving not as they like they will tell you so in ways you may find innapropriate, the Dutch are famous for that. Don't bother with that because 5 seconds later they will change opinnion and find you the coolest guy ever...
Thats about all I can think off,
There you have my oppinion as Naval Architect and from a player/sailor point of view...
There is a small demo for free. It gives a good impression of the rest of the simulator. Definetly worth to try it out as it does not cost more than some time...
If there is any questions feel free to ask me. I know a bit about the gaming mechanics and if there is some other things I am native Dutch so I can scout the Dutch forums for you which have a bit more information on them than the english one's...