Seafaring: anchors, wrecks and salvage
Drop anchor with X (or the ⚓ button on the ship panel): the anchor bites and she comes to a dead stop within a couple of seconds. Press it again, or set sail, to weigh anchor.
Sinking
When your hull reaches nothing your ship founders: she settles by the stern with her bow in the air, smoking, and bobs there. You lose a tenth of your gold. Then either:
- RECOVER her yourself (the button on screen): she sails on from where she sank with only a tenth of her sailors and 30% of her speed until you reach a port, where a fresh crew signs on and the shipwrights make her sound.
- Or wait for a friend: a captain carrying a Salvage Chain (sold in every port's general store) can right-click your wreck and choose Tow to port. When they dock, you come in with them: hull patched to half, a full crew and no limp.
Ship fittings and slots
Every ship has sail fittings (most carry two; the end-game speed ships and the Great Clipper carry five), hull armour and cannons. Each ship also has ship-skill slots (more on bigger, rarer ships) and an aura slot: their skills and auras arrive in a later update.
The end-game ships
Bonehaven's shipyard, in the last of the seas, sells the fastest hulls afloat and the greatest trader:
- Corsair Xebec: a long, low raider under three great lateen sails, the fastest ship in the game (five sail fittings).
- Pearl Sambuk: a teak sambuk with a high carved stern, quick and roomy (900 cargo, five sail fittings).
- Great Clipper: three towering masts of canvas and a hold for 5,000 cargo, with five sail fittings.
Things in the deep
Out at sea, away from a port's safe waters, the deep sometimes attacks: a kraken wraps a ship in its tentacles and crushes her for a few seconds, a bull whale rams her side, and shark packs circle and tear at the planks. They wound a ship but never sink her by themselves. Dolphins race beside you, whales spout in the distance and gulls follow your wake.
Landmarks
Islands show what they are from the sea: lighthouses over the ports (their lamps sweep the water at night), windmills on the farming islands, tomb gates on dungeon islands, skull rocks with burning eyes where island bosses wait, crypt spires across the undead seas, and the Twin Giants rising out of the clouds long before you reach them.