Launching, sailing and repairing boats

Launch the hull you carry

In full Adventure, step from walkable land or the shallows into deep water to launch a boat from your pack or quick slots. Stable any brought-out mount or pack animal first. The game chooses the highest-tier hull that fits the water, then the one with the greatest fraction of hull remaining. Equal boats keep their store order, and a tie between pack and quick slot favours the quick slot. Protect and Retain do not stop this automatic choice. A successful launch pays the movement cost at the destination, so it need not advance a whole world turn.

Pools, river reaches and bridges

The launch check needs at least 120 connected deep or shallow water tiles. Diagonal connections count. In worlds with the newer river network, each reach also limits the hull tier it can carry. A raft or skiff can launch in navigable river shallows. A Cutter or larger hull needs the deep channel there. Directly steering a large hull into that river’s shallow margin makes you wade ashore and put the boat away. Automatic course stops instead. A boat can pass beneath a bridge when water continues ahead within 14 bridge tiles. Open sea, lakes and older worlds do not apply the river tier and draft restrictions.

Land, or leave a hull afloat

While steering on the overworld, step onto walkable land to disembark. This pays the movement cost at the destination, so it need not advance a whole world turn. It returns the same boat, with its condition and stored state, to your backpack. If the pack has no free slot, the action attempts to leave the boat on nearby ground. Dive in instead leaves the hull floating where you left it. It does not drift away. Bump that hull from the bank or water to climb back aboard. In co-op, a hull another player left remains theirs, and the pilot must put passengers ashore before diving.

Walk the deck, or steer by hand

A Cutter and every larger boat has a walkable deck and a hold below it in single-player. Boarding normally puts you on deck and sets automatic course to the boat’s heading. Use Heading at the helm wheel to change course. Go below deck uses the hatch, and Climb to the deck uses the ladder below. Steer by hand (world map) returns you to direct overworld control and stops automatic course. Walking the deck and hold is unavailable during co-op. A Skiff carries one passenger beside its pilot, and a Cutter or larger hull carries three. A raft has room only for its pilot.

Automatic sailing has its own pace

While you walk on deck or below, automatic sailing covers one world tile for every 3 points of the boat’s wind-adjusted speed. Unused progress carries into the next turn. A calm Cutter therefore moves 1 world tile per turn, while a calm Ship of the Line covers 7 tiles over 3 turns. The downstream-current bonus used by direct sailing is not added to this automatic pace. The pilot can follow bends in the newer river network. Automatic course stops at land, an impassable reach, the world boundary or hull condition below 15%. Exactly 15% does not trigger that hull stop.

Automatic voyages can damage the hull

Each world turn under way on automatic course has a 3% chance of a sea encounter, dealing 1 to 3 hull damage. A ship still building up enough progress to move can take this roll if water ahead remains navigable. Simply staying aboard a stopped ship does not run it. Current deck hulls stop automatic course at low condition before this small encounter roll can break them. This roll belongs to automatic deck or hold travel. It is separate from direct sailing and actual sea-creature attacks.

A sea creature can hurt boat and sailor

An ordinary creature melee hit against your active sailing character sends the creature’s full melee damage to the hull. The character’s half begins at that damage divided by two, rounded down, then uses the character’s defences. Blocking the character’s damage does not cancel the hull’s share. This is the melee route, and other attack types have their own rules. The hull’s condition appears in the sailing display and hull damage is written in the message log. Without a damage-interception effect, a hull reduced to zero by this melee route breaks and leaves you swimming at that position.

Patch the hull from your pack

Right-click your own tile while aboard and choose Patch the hull. Each patch restores 10% of the hull’s maximum, rounded to the nearest point with a minimum of 1. It costs one Wood Plank per boat tier and half as many Iron Nails, rounded up. One action lays every patch the pack can afford, stopping at 75% of maximum hull rounded down. It costs one turn. Materials in quick slots or hold storage are not searched. Protect stops these materials being spent, while Retain does not.

When field repairs are refused

A sound hull or one already at its field-patch limit cannot receive another patch. Missing materials also stop the action. While steering on the overworld, a qualifying hostile within 6 horizontal and vertical steps in total prevents patching. The check includes a provoked animal that is hunting you. It excludes a submerged eel and your allied units. The nearby-enemy check is not made inside the deck or hold. A co-op client is not offered the field repair action. Refused field repairs spend no materials and no turn.

Ask a Shipwright for full repairs

Speak to an available Shipwright with a damaged boat aboard or in your backpack. The active hull takes priority, otherwise the first damaged boat in the pack is offered. Full repair costs half a gold piece per missing hull point per boat tier, rounded up, with a minimum of 1 gold. The service-discount bonus can reduce this quote by up to 95%. The repair brings the selected hull to its full maximum. The menu rechecks that a damaged hull remains before charging. Quick-slot boats are not searched by this service.

Buy a hull, or build an early one

The boat pages list verified Shipwright stock for each hull and shop tier. Those are base prices before shop modifiers and remaining purchases. Ordinary full Adventure crafting has patterns for the raft, Skiff and Cutter. The raft is known from the start, while the other two use their matching blueprints. Picking up a new boat blueprint teaches its pattern immediately. Higher hulls have verified purchase routes. Buying a vessel does not add a separate cargo-slot bonus to your character. In larger hulls, storage comes from the containers you use below deck.

Keep storage with the ship

Player-built furniture and storage records in the hold are saved on that particular hull when you leave the hold and restored when you return. This includes the tagged storage contents. When switching ships, the old hold’s tagged records are cleared before the new hold’s records are restored. Deck and hold dimensions describe the rooms, not a fixed total cargo capacity. The ordinary storage rules still determine how much each container holds.