I went to Port Iława in Poland, to a place that looks like a boating lake — and is, technically — except it’s also a serious training facility for people who drive the kind of ships that can’t just “have a go” near a real harbour wall. At the Ship Handling Research and Training Centre, pilots and captains practise on 1-to-24 scale working models that behave like the real thing, because the physics scales in ways that a normal RC boat absolutely doesn’t. And yes: I got to drive one. The point isn’t cute miniature ships. It’s muscle memory, judgement, and understanding how a big vessel responds when you’re dealing with wind, current, inertia, and the awkward fact that ships don’t really stop so much as they negotiate with the water for a while. This is training that sits in the gap between classroom theory and “please don’t learn this by crashing a container ship”. It’s also a reminder that sometimes the best simulation isn’t a screen: it’s a weird little boat on a lake, with real momentum, real delay, and real consequences — just scaled down enough that everyone can go home afterwards.