Boat slots are limited early on, but more unlock as you level up Sailing. Because facilities currently cannot be moved without destroying them, planning your fleet ahead of RuneScape gold time matters more than most players expect.

Your first permanent boat slot should almost always be a Skiff dedicated exclusively to Barracuda Trials. This skiff should be built for speed and efficiency, with a crystal extractor placed directly next to the helm, a wind or gale catcher, and ideally a greater teleport focus. Its only purpose is blasting through trials as fast as possible.

For nearly everything else, Sloops are the workhorses of Sailing. A strong AFK salvaging sloop should include two salvaging hooks, a salvaging station, a crystal extractor, a keg, a teleport focus, and a wind catcher. This setup lets you relax while gaining consistent XP with minimal attention.

A combat-focused sloop is nearly identical, except you swap the salvaging hooks for cannons. Later on, you may want a fishing-oriented sloop with high-tier nets, a chump station, and fathom pearl upgrades, but this is more of a luxury once dock space is plentiful.

Don't Feel Forced to Push 99

Despite the prestige of a max cape or custom boat name, Sailing does not require level 99 to access its meaningful content. Level 87 unlocks Grimstone, which currently represents the skill's full functional offering.

Unless you're chasing max total or cosmetic goals, grinding past 87 isn't necessary right now. You're not missing out by slowing down-and avoiding burnout early is a win.

How Sailing Combat Actually Works

For bounties and sea monster hunting, cannons are your primary damage source. Attacking monsters directly with spells or ranged attacks deals significantly reduced damage, which catches a lot of players off guard.

That said, weaknesses still matter. Armored Krakens, for example, are weak to Earth spells, and combining Earth magic with cannon fire speeds kills up considerably.

When running bounties with a full crew, the optimal setup is:

One player navigating

One player manning the cannon

One player repairing

This frees the remaining player to contribute extra damage with magic or ranged attacks, which genuinely helps in longer fights.

One important detail:

If a crewmate is operating the cannon, cannonballs must be stored in the cargo hold.

If you are manning the cannon, keep cannonballs in your inventory instead.

RuneLite and Quality-of-Life Tricks

If you're using RuneLite, a few small changes can massively improve Sailing flow. Use Menu Entry Swapper to shift-right-click the helm and change its default option to "Move here." This prevents accidental misclicks from stopping navigation during trials.

You can also set the reset button to one-click reset, removing the confirmation pop-up entirely-huge for trial runs.

Always place your crystal extractor directly next to the helm. If it's placed elsewhere, your character will stop navigating to walk over and harvest crystals, which completely disrupts momentum. There's also a five-tick delay before crystals can be grabbed during wind mode, so use that time to position correctly rather than standing idle.

Speed, Cells, and Tight Turns

Higher-tier cells keep their speed boost active longer, which matters far more than most players realize. The visual metronome plugin can be synced to match your cell's boost duration, giving a far clearer timing cue than watching tiny UI numbers.

On tighter courses like Gwenneth Glide, especially if your boat has a Rosewood hull, slowing down using interface buttons is often mandatory. Full speed can cause you to snag geometry and lose time-or even get stuck entirely.

If you miss a crate after passing the halfway point of most courses, it's usually faster to OSRS GP for sale turn around and grab it rather than resetting. Gwenneth Glide is the main exception, as its portals make backtracking impractical.