Sailing
About This Machine
The 1944 V.P. Distributing Company's 'Sailing' pinball machine is a wartime conversion of Bally's 1939 'White Sails.' Like other games from this manufacturer's 1944 line, an existing flipperless cabinet was reworked and relabeled during a period of wartime shortages in new materials.
As a flipperless, electro-mechanical machine, Sailing relied on plunger shots and gravity rather than flipper control, with players attempting to accumulate points by directing the ball toward scoring targets. Its mechanical components, including relays and switches, controlled scoring in the manner typical of early EM machines.
Given the scarcity of documentation available, much about Sailing's specific rules and playability remains uncertain, but as a wartime conversion it offers a useful window into how operators kept games running when new production was constrained.