regarding the currents and winds: the game is all about that, too. The first time I played I kept incurring in loss after loss, while running stuff from africa to england and vice-versa. Then it ocurred to me it might model the currents and winds and I looked up a stream chart on the internet.
Indeed, it will take the same ship over two months to go from Luanda to Portugal, but less than two weeks to go from Rio de Janeiro to Cape Town. Or Less than forty days to sail from Liverpool to Rio de Janeiro, for that matter. It was not because of the fancy of it that the portuguese came close to the brazilian coast when en route to asia, it is faster to approach the americas and then go to capetown and cross to the indian ocean than to go coasting africa. At least when sailing. I don't know how a steam ship would respond.
anyway. I only played twice and the second time I played I started to make some money running machines to rio de janeiro (from London). I couldn't figure out how to save the game then, tough. Going to try again today!
A very nice game. Anybody has heard any sounds/tunes on it? It doesn't play any sounds on my machine, albeit there is a directory called SND. I see no sound configuration utility or menu though. Not really a surprise given how STUPID the game interface is. Probably the worst ever. By far.