Sailing in Valheim is a must for players that want to experience the entirety of what the game has to offer. But with all things in Valheim, figuring out how to sail is the true challenge. This game, in true survival game fashion, rarely gives hints on how you to play past the tutorial. In this guide, however, you’ll have all your questions answered and you’ll know how to sail in Valheim by the end.
How to Sail
Setting sail in Valheim is actually a lot easier than you’d think. All you need is a raft. Building a raft is quite simple, thankfully. All you need to do is find a large body of water you wanna cross, and take your hammer out to build a workbench nearby. You’ll need twenty pieces of wood, six pieces of leather scraps, and ten pieces of Resin.
The wood can be acquired by chopping down some trees or picking up some branches while the leather scraps have to be taken from Boars. For the Resin, you have to hunt down some Greylings. Once you have all these materials, build the raft right on the water.
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While building the raft is easy, using it for sailing is another story. The raft has four modes of movement based on the sails: full sail, half sail, up, and rudder movement. If the sails are completely up, the raft won’t move at all, but if they are at full sail, you should get full speed. Pretty simple, right?
However, Valheim has taken their realism to a higher degree than most survival games. To really understand sailing, you’re going to have to understand the wind. If the wind isn’t blowing in the direction that the sails are facing, then the raft will not move. Be sure to use your compass to track the direction of the wind. Worst case scenario, the direction of the wind won’t be exactly what you need, but you might still be able to use it.
If you get frustrated with the raft, you shouldn’t worry. You are not the only one. However, the pros of the raft vastly outweigh the cons. Not only does it cut down on travel time, but it also brings uncommon resources into your reach. And given time, you’ll eventually be able to upgrade your raft into something more seaworthy.