Sailing has officially been live in Old School RuneScape for over a week, and while many players have already wrapped their heads around the basics, there’s a surprising amount of depth hiding beneath the surface. Charting routes and salvaging wrecks are only the beginning—once you understand how boats, crew, combat, and efficiency really work, Sailing becomes far less frustrating and far more rewarding. A large amount of RuneScape gold can also be very helpful.

Whether you’re aiming for efficient XP, smooth bounty runs, or just trying to avoid costly mistakes, these Sailing tips will save you hours in the long run.

Plan Your Boats Early

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 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 turn around and grab it rather than resetting. Gwenneth Glide is the main exception, as its portals make backtracking impractical.

Learning Trials and Courier Tasks

When learning Marlin trials, focus on building muscle memory first. Resetting endlessly to chase time requirements early just bleeds XP. Once you know the route, speed comes naturally.

For courier tasks, the Sailing plugin can draw the optimal route between ports, making planning far easier. When hiring crew, prioritize high deck handiness, as these crew members carry more crates per trip, reducing back-and-forth time.

Avoid mainland-to-Zea raft tasks—they’re dangerous, slow, and offer poor XP. Instead, double-dip by taking tasks at intermediate ports along routes you’re already traveling.

If a task is far away but worth doing, teleport to the destination and summon your boat—just make sure your cargo hold is empty, as any remaining items will be lost.

Charts, Boosting, and Hidden Gotchas

Installing both the wiki plugin and the Sailing RuneLite plugin is strongly recommended. They track charted locations and provide an interactive map synced to your account progress.

Some charting spots require a raft due to shallow or awkward terrain. Completing these early means you may never need a raft again unless new content is added.

For duck current charts, half speed is ideal—it keeps pace without losing the duck, similar to old escort quests.

Boosting in Sailing trips many players up: you cannot boost to access docks you don’t meet the base level for. For example, boosting to 87 will not unlock Grimstone—you must actually be level 87.

Final Thoughts

Sailing has a lot of moving parts, and many mechanics only make sense once you’ve learned them the hard way. Focus on what’s relevant to your current level and goals, plan your boats carefully, and don’t feel pressured to brute-force progress.

Once everything clicks, Sailing becomes far more enjoyable—and far less punishing—than it first appears. Having enough cheap Runescape gold can be very helpful.