Sailing Arrives in OSRS: New Skill Unlocks, Boats, Training, and Market Impact

Game screenshots and facts are cited from the Old School RuneScape Wiki (strategy, equipment, drops, and related pages). Writing is original editorial, not a copy of the wiki article.

On 19 November 2025, Old School RuneScape received its first ever exclusive skill: Sailing. This members-only addition lets players captain a boat, explore the oceans of Gielinor, and train through a mix of transport, combat, and exploration tasks. Sailing is gated behind the Pandemonium quest, which also hands out your first raft, so even fresh members can get onto the water quickly.

This update isn't a minigame or a side activity — it's a full 1-99 skill with its own shipbuilding system, crewmates, ocean encounters, quests, and permanent unlocks. For players who care about efficient account progress, the new skill introduces real decisions: which boat to buy, which facilities to install, which waters to chart, and how much gold to sink into repairs before making a profit. The following guide breaks down what changed, who should train Sailing first, and the knock-on effects for buyers and sellers in the OSRS marketplace.

Who Sailing Is For (and Requirements)

Sailing is aimed at members who want a new long-term progression track. It is not a requirement for existing content, but it opens new quests and has level checks for boat ownership, facilities, and ocean areas. The skill is only exclusive to OSRS, so it carries a certain novelty factor for returning players.

If you plan to do Sailing efficiently, you'll eventually want 56 Magic for the Summon Boat spell (requires a teleport focus installed) and 67 Magic for Teleport to boat (requires a greater teleport focus). These aren't required to train, but they save significant time returning to your vessel between activities.

Getting Started: Pandemonium and Your First Boat

After completing Pandemonium, speak to any shipwright to buy additional boats or customize your existing raft. The first boat is free, but upgrades and extra hulls cost coins. There are three boat sizes at launch: the Raft, Skiff, and Sloop. Each has different base hitpoints, facility hotspots, player capacity, and crew slots. The level requirements to obtain and use them are not boostable.

Here is the comparison of the three base boat types available from shipwrights:

The Raft is fragile but cheap to recover, and it has a single hotspot for either a cargo hold or another facility. The Skiff is fast and required for Barracuda Trials. The Sloop is the workhorse for combat, salvaging, and sea trawling, but its recovery costs and customisation fees are steep. Owning all three becomes useful because some activities (like certain sea charting spots) specifically require a raft, while others demand a skiff or sloop.

Boat Types and Shipbuilding Customization

Shipbuilding is where most of the skill's depth lives. Through the Shipyard, players can upgrade core components — hull, helm, mast, sails, and keel — and install facilities on their boat. Each facility occupies a hotspot, and different boats have different facility allowances. The facilities you can build include:

• Cargo hold — storage for courier crates, salvage, and fish crates.
• Cannon — enables ranged combat against sea monsters.
• Salvaging hook — allows shipwreck salvaging.
• Wind catcher — interacts with sailing wind mechanics.
• Anchor — allows mooring in certain locations (only on skiff and sloop).
• Inoculation station — used in hazardous seas (only on skiff and sloop).

Core parts are not level-locked after building, but active facilities such as cannons, salvaging hooks, trawling nets, and chum stations require the player to maintain a Sailing boost if they built them with a temporary level. Support facilities like the cargo hold and salvaging station can still be used below the minimum level. Only the boat's owner can trim sails they don't have the level to use; other players on the boat must use boosts to trim them.

Training Methods: Courier, Salvaging, Charting, Barracuda, and Trawling

Sailing experience comes from five core activities, each with different attention demands and rewards:

• Courier tasks — transport crates between ports. These are low intensity, require cargo hold space, and are good for alt-tab training.
• Bounty tasks — kill sea monsters with cannons or conventional ranged weapons. Higher attention and combat supply costs, but also drops unique materials used for ship upgrades.
• Sea charting — perform one-off surveying tasks, some restricted to specific boat sizes. These are often efficient XP per hour but limited per area.
• Shipwreck salvaging — use the salvaging hook to recover loot and XP from underwater wrecks. Requires a salvaging hook facility and a boat with enough health to survive ocean hazards.
• Barracuda Trials — timed challenges only available on a Skiff. Good for players who like skill-based time trials.
• Deep sea trawling — fish in ocean areas using a trawling net facility. This provides both Sailing and Fishing XP, and fish crates can be stored in the cargo hold.

Most players will mix methods. Courier tasks are passive but generate consistent XP; bounty and salvaging scale with boat upgrades and provide drops that can be sold or used to improve facilities. Sea charting is a one-time burst of XP per chart. Barracuda Trials are best left until you have a Skiff with a few upgrades, because the boat's speed and hitpoints affect success.

Use the following table to decide which method fits your play style. Note that exact XP rates are not listed on the wiki; test your own rates after the first few levels.

Boat Combat and Ocean Encounters

Once you install a cannon, you can engage sea monsters like sharks, monodons, krakens, and more. Boat combat replaces your hitpoints with the boat's hitpoints. You need to position the monster within 180 degrees of the cannon and within 15 tiles. Successful hits give scaled Sailing XP based on damage dealt. If your boat's health hits zero, it capsizes and you are teleported to the last gangplank you set sail from — you keep your inventory, but any cargo in the hold (courier crates, bounty items, salvage, trawling fish) is lost.

Unique drops from high-level sea monsters include the echo pearl (orcas), swift albatross feathers (albatross), narwhal horn (narwhal), ray barbs (rays), broken dragon hook (great white shark), and bottled storm (armoured and vampyre krakens). These are used to build advanced facilities: fathom pearl, gale catcher, chum spreader, cotton and hemp trawling nets, dragon salvaging hook, and greater teleport focus. If you plan to sell these drops, expect demand to track the number of players pushing ship upgrades, but consult the Grand Exchange for current prices.

Quests, Boosts, and Milestones

Sailing is integrated into quest requirements, with a chain that starts early. The full quest table is as follows:

In addition, many existing quests can give optional XP lamps or books to Sailing, including X Marks the Spot, Client of Kourend, Fairytale II, One Small Favour, Recipe for Disaster, and Sins of the Father. If you have banked lamps from these quests, you can dump them into Sailing to skip early levels.

Sailing has a number of temporary boosts. The most relevant are:

• Sailing cape — +1 visible boost when activated.
• Kraken ink stout — +1 Sailing, +4% ocean encounter chance when in a keg.
• Perildance bitter — +1 Sailing, increases cannon max hit by 1 when in a keg.
• Trawler's trust — +2 Sailing, 5% chance to catch extra fish while deep sea trawling.
• Whirlpool surprise — +3 visible Sailing (plus invisible +2 when in keg), gives crew minimum Deckhandiness and Helmsmanship.
• Horizon's lure — +4 Sailing, +2.5% Sailing XP.
• Spicy stew (yellow) — ±0-5 Sailing.

Common Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

New sailors often lose cargo or waste gold by misunderstanding boat movement and death mechanics. Here are the most frequent pitfalls:

• Teleporting with cargo. The Summon Boat spell (56 Magic) and boat relocation methods delete courier crates, bounty items, salvaged loot, and non-empty fish crates. Only cannonballs, repair kits, fish offcuts, and empty fish crates are kept. If you need to move your boat, empty the hold first.
• Forgetting which boat you're on. A boat can only be at one port at a time. If you set sail from an island with only a mooring point and no gangplank, your gravestone on death goes to the previous gangplank. Set your respawn dock by clicking the "dock" option on a buoy at your selected pier.
• Boosting for boat ownership. Boat type requirements are not boostable. You cannot buy a Skiff at 13 with a +2 boost; you need base level 15.
• Ignoring wind and sails. Sailing speed changes depending on sail trim and wind direction. If you don't set sails correctly, you move slower and may fail Barracuda Trials or miss ocean encounters.
• Letting crewmates idle. When you switch worlds while on your own boat, crewmates briefly stop working until they return to their assigned positions. On guest boats, world hopping can strand you in Limbo until you hop back.

Marketplace Knock-On Effects

The Sailing rollout changes what players are buying, selling, and boosting. Here's what we know from the update itself, with no speculation on unconfirmed prices.

First, new accounts and returning players now have an additional reason to finish Pandemonium. That quest gates Sailing, so account sellers can highlight completed Pandemonium as a ready-to-train state. Fresh accounts without the quest need a few minutes of work, but accounts with a first raft and some early levels are more attractive to buyers who don't want to do the introductory quest again.

Second, the boat economy creates gold sinks: rafts cost 1,000 gp, skiffs 15,000 gp, sloops 200,000 gp, and recovery fees scale from 250 gp for a raft to 50,000 gp for a sloop, plus repair costs of 50 coins per missing hitpoint at the shipyard. Players who rush a Sloop will need either a cash reserve or a method to fund the upgrade. That drives demand for gold and for carry services that help players farm the unique drops used to build advanced facilities.

Third, the unique monster drops — echo pearl, swift albatross feathers, narwhal horn, ray barbs, broken dragon hook, bottled storm — are naturally tradeable, but the wiki does not list Grand Exchange prices. If you're buying or selling these, check the current GE price before committing, because early-market volatility is likely.

Finally, Sailing leveling services and quest carries are already a topic in boosting communities. Completing the quest chain up to Fallen From Grace requires a Sailing level of 62 plus other skills, and some rewards are time-gated. Players who want the new quest rewards without grinding can use a boosting service, provided they follow the game rules and use a reputable provider.

If you'd rather skip the early Sailing grind or need help finishing Pandemonium and getting your first boat upgraded, support the marketplace and compare offers from vetted players. Always verify current prices and requirements on the wiki before buying.

Next Steps and Practical Advice

Sailing is best approached in stages. Use this order to avoid wasting gold and time:

1. Complete Pandemonium and claim the free raft.
2. Do courier tasks until you can afford a skiff, preserving cargo by not teleporting with crates.
3. Install a cargo hold first, then a salvaging hook if you enjoy wreck diving, or a cannon if you prefer combat.
4. Save up for a Sloop only after you have a steady method to recover its 50,000 gp recovery cost — losing a fully upgraded sloop to a capsize is a major setback.
5. Use quest XP lamps from older quests to push early Sailing levels if you have them banked.
6. Keep a few repair kits on hand. Sea monsters can out-damage a low-level boat quickly.
7. Join a clan or use guest access to try out different boats before buying your own bigger hull.

If you're returning after a break, treat Sailing like Construction: it's a gold sink at first, but it unlocks permanent methods and new questlines. The training curve is long, but the variety of activities means you can switch between active and passive play without burning out.

Sources

• Sailing on the OSRS Wiki
• Boat on the OSRS Wiki