"Why should I bother using a boat, when there's travelling spells?" you might ask. Apart from you being a pirate (and which pirate does NOT know how to navigate a vessel??), there are several reasons why using a boat can be a lot of fun:

• Exploring the islands of Britannia and Tokuno
• Getting acquainted with geography
• Deep-sea fishing
• Fishing for SOS treasure
• Organizing fun events, like ship races
• Participating in sea battles with other guilds or in Felucca

This guide will help you to learn how to handle and navigate ships. It will explain the available commands and tools.

Buying the Ship

You can buy the ship at any shipwright in Britannia. There are different types and sizes of ships available. They all work the same, but look different. Available ship sizes are small, medium and large. Available ship types are Normal and Dragon Ship. You should select the ship size according to your venture. A small ship can be navigated more easily through narrow channels, a large ship can hold a bigger crew.

Once you bought a ship, you will receive a ship deed. If you use this deed, you can place your ship into the water. When you dry-dock your ship again, it will not be turned into the deed, but into a small ship model. Both, deed and model, work in the same way, are blessed and thus cannot be lost.

Once you launch your ship, one ship key will be placed into your backpack, and one into your bank box. You can enter the ship by using its plank. However, the plank is locked after lauching. You have to unlock it by using the key and targeting the plank. Then you can open the plank and enter. It is recommended that you close the plank and lock it, once you have entered the ship. This prevents unwanted intruders on your vessel. It is always possible to leave a locked boat, but it isn't possible to enter it unless it is unlocked first.
The ship key in your bank comes in handy in case you should die on your boat. You can then sail as a ghost to the next town, leave the ship and get resurrected. You then can grab your second key from the bank box, unlock the boat and recover your items or dry-dock the boat.
Another interesting feature: If you use a magic traveling spell and target the ship key, you will be transported directly onto your ship.

If you leave your ship unlocked, anyone can enter and use it, but it cannot be dry-docked without the ship key in the backpack. Any ship will decay after 3 days, unless it is used or dry-docked.

Useful Tools for Navigation

There are several very useful tools available that will help you navigating your ship:

• You should have a printout of the map to get an overview of the geography. Very good printable maps are available here.
• A very handy ultility is the UO AutoMap. It is a zoomable map that can be opened while using UO, and it automatically tracks your location.
• To submit the boat commands, you can either create macros, or use the tool UO Rudder. This is a small graphical interface which transmits the boat commands to the UO client.
• You can use a sextant to navigate by sextant coordinates. This is a bit tricky, but once you figured it out, it is a good way to describe specific locations and find them again. Sextants can be bought from the provisioner or can be crafted by a tinker. A special sextant, the Mariner's Brass Sextant, was once available via the Spring Decor Collection. It now can be bought from some vendors in-game. It is a blessed sextant with green coloration.
• If you are lazy and don't want to utter too many boat commands, you can also plot the course on a map and hand it over to the tillerman. Two types of maps are useful for a seafarer: Sea charts and a map of the world. A map of the world can be bought from the mapmaker. A sea chart can only be created by a skilled cartographer. While the world map shows the whole world and is not so detailed, a sea chart shows the local area and is more detailed. A special world map, the Navigator's World Map, was once available via the Spring Decor Collection. It now can be bought from some vendors in-game. It is a blessed world map with green coloration.

How to Navigate a Ship

The basics of ship navigation are the ship commands. If you are alone on a ship, the tillerman will listen to you, even if you don't have a key. If many people are on board, the tillerman will listen to the one who holds the ship key.

Command:	Effect:
Drop anchor	Prevents ship movement, prepares ship for dry-docking
Raise anchor	Enables ship movement
Forward, Backward, Left, Right	Moves ship in the given direction
Turn left, Turn right	Rotates the ship in the given direction
Turn around	Turns ship around
Forward left, Forward right	Moves the ship diagonally forward
Back left, back right	Moves the ship diagonally backward
One [Command]	Moves ship one tile in the given direction
Slow [Command]	Moves ship with reduced speed in the given direction
Stop	Stops ship movement

A more comfortable way to sail to your destination is to plot a course on a map and hand the map over to the tillerman. You can use either sea charts (recommended!) or a map of the world. If you open a map, you can click on "plot course", then click on the map to mark the course. Each pin you stick into the map is a position to which your tillerman will sail. When you're done, hand over the map to the tillerman. If you clear the map afterwards, the tillerman will forget the course. You can then command the tillerman to follow that route:

Command:	Effect:
Start	Begin sailing along the given course
Goto #	Sail to pin number #, then continue with the course
Single #	Sail to pin number # and stop.
Nav	The tillerman will answer which pin he's heading to
Continue	Resume the course after stopped or manually interfered

You can always interrupt the course and speak the normal ship commands, for example when you want to sail around an obstacle. With the "Continue" command, the tillerman will resume the course.

Storage

Items left on the deck of your boat will decay approximately after 2 hours. Items on your boat are only visible to people standing on the boat. You can also store wares indefinitely in the hold of the ship. The hold can be accessed by anybody who is on board the ship. So if you use the hold for storage, make sure your ship is always locked! Items in the hold can only be lost, if the ship decays. You can store up to 125 items in the ship's hold. The weight limit is 400 stones.

Turbulent Waters!

Several server boundaries split up the world of Britannia. Those lines can be seen on UO AutoMap. Whenever you cross such a boundary, your backpack will close and the tillerman will be slightly irritated. Also keep in mind that you cannot plot a course over the east/west server boundary (east of Moonglow). You'd have to plot two courses and sail across the boundary manually.

You can also travel to the Lost Lands and back by ship, by finding one of the two Serpent Pillars. One is located west of Jhelom at 145°S, 63°W. The other is located between Trinsic and New Haven at 111°S, 116° E. To pass from Britannia to the Lost Lands, you have to speak the word "Doracron" when you're near the pillar. To pass from the Lost Lands to Britannia, you have to speak "Sueacron". The Serpent Pillars in the Lost Lands are located at 61°N, 47° W in the western sea, and at 36° N, 2° E in the eastern sea.

In the Lost Lands you cannot plot a course, but have to sail manually.