Black Desert Online Sailing Guide: Ships, Barter, and Sea Monsters
How to get your first BDO ship, upgrade it, run barter routes, hunt sea monsters, and avoid losing your boat on the open ocean.
So you want to get off the mainland and actually see what the Great Ocean is about. Sailing in Black Desert Online opens up a whole side of the game that a lot of players skip, and once you have a decent ship it turns into a steady drip of silver, ship materials, and Crow Coins. The catch is the ocean genuinely does not care about you. Ships cost real silver, the monsters out there hit hard, and one bad move can leave you drifting in deep water with no map and no way home.
Here is how to get your first boat, upgrade it without wasting weeks, run barter routes that actually pay, and take down the big sea monsters without sinking.
Unlocking Your First Ship and Barge
The free starter ship
Your first real boat is the Bartali Sailboat, and you get it for nothing from the main quest line. Talk to your Black Spirit and look for the quest called "Vigorous Velia" (it shows up under the Suggested tab around level 50). Work through that line and you walk away with a Ship License of Bartali Sailboat. Register it at a Wharf Manager like Croix down at the Velia docks and you are on the water.
Need a second copy later on? Proix in Velia sells the license for 10 million silver. Not cheap for a fresh account, but handy if you want to keep a spare boat docked at a different port.
Why the Bartali and not the cheap boats
You can buy a Raft, Rowboat, Fishing Boat, or Cog off the Central Market for almost nothing. Skip them for anything beyond messing around near shore. These are the low-tier boats, and the moment their durability hits zero they are gone for good. No repair, no refund, no getting your mats back.
The Bartali is the first ship in the Epheria line and the first one that counts as a real Great Ocean ship. It has cannons, it has rooms for a crew, and most importantly it can be repaired and restocked at any Wharf Manager. The tradeoff is it cannot use ship skills, so it is slow and its combat is weak. Think of it as the starter bike that gets you out to the good stuff.
The ferry is free, just slow
Before you own a boat you can still ride the NPC ferry from Velia out to Iliya Island. It is a little cog boat that waits near the Old Pier sign, takes off every few minutes, and costs you nothing. Fine for a one-time trip or a look around. Useless for barter runs because you cannot carry cargo on it.
Ship UI tricks that save time
Once you have a boat, learn the anchor icon in the top left of your screen. Right-click it from 40 meters out and you get a ping to where your ship drifted off to. Right-click within 80 meters and you can call the ship straight to you, which has a 30 second cooldown and will dump any passengers right off the deck. Left-click near the wheel to grab it instantly. Small thing, huge time saver when your boat gets beached on a rock.
Ship Upgrade Materials and Skills
Pick your path early
Before you sink mats into upgrades, pick a lane, because it decides your endgame ship. There are two upgrade trees, and both end at the Epheria Carrack, which is the best craftable ship in the game.
- Barter tree: Bartali Sailboat → Epheria Sailboat → Improved Epheria Sailboat → Epheria Caravel → Epheria Carrack
- Battle tree: Bartali Sailboat → Epheria Frigate → Improved Epheria Frigate → Epheria Galleass → Epheria Carrack
The Sailboat line carries more weight and turns better, which matters a ton for barter runs. The Frigate line is faster and hits harder, which is what you want for sea monster hunting and naval fights. Most people go Sailboat first since barter pays for the rest of the upgrades.
What the Bartali-to-Sailboat upgrade actually costs
You can upgrade a Bartali straight into a T2 ship at the Wharf Manager in about ten seconds, as long as the mats are in your inventory. For the Epheria Sailboat you need roughly 350 Standardized Timber Squares, 250 Steel, 700 Pine Plywood, 100 Flax Fabric, and 5 Gold Bars of 1000G (about 500.5 million silver, give or take). Add a Ship Upgrade Permit bought from Philaberto Falasi in Port Epheria for 100 million silver.
The Frigate route runs higher, around 450 timber squares, 350 Jade Coral Ingots, 750 Pine Coated Plywood, 200 Enhanced Flax Fabric, plus a 200 million silver permit. It is the pricier of the two, but you are paying for a ship that can actually fight.
You also need four ship parts from Falasi (figurehead, plating, cannon, wind sail) enhanced to +10. The nice part here is they have a flat 100 percent enhancement chance, so you cannot fail them. Buy the parts, throw Black Stones at them, done.
Ship skills you actually want
Higher-tier ships unlock skills, and a few of them completely change how the ocean feels.
- BreezySail (Shift+W): The big one. Once you hit full speed it slings you forward in a burst, and you can set it to fire on its own. Needs Skilled 1 sailing, durability over 50 percent, and the ship not overloaded. This is the skill that makes long barter loops bearable.
- PowerAccel (Space+W): Instant burst from a standstill. Good for getting off the dock fast.
- Ram (F): Charges the ship forward and does real damage. Costs 20,000 durability a hit, so it is rough on your boat. Press F again to cut the animation short once you are over the target.
- FocusFire (Q or E): Switches to an aim-assisted cannon view. On improved ships and up it makes hitting distant sea monsters way easier.
- AbruptTurn and Smooth-Turn (Artisan and Master): Tighter turning, more or less required once you start kiting monsters around.
For the real speed freaks, there is an item called Ebenruth's Nol that costs 2 million Crow Coin and only fits on a Carrack. It lets you chain a second BreezySail with no stamina cost. Late-game flex, but it is the fastest you will ever move on water.
Where the upgrade mats come from
You do not buy your way to a Carrack. The mats come from barter refreshes, daily sailing quests, and sea monster drops. The big roadblock is Sea Monster's Ooze, and you need about 150 of them to upgrade to the Epheria Caravel. Start farming that early. The daily quests on Iliya Island and Oquilla's Eye hand out ship goods and Sailing EXP as you go, so do them every day even when they feel pointless.
Sea Trade and Barter Routes
What barter is and what you need
Barter is the ocean trade skill. You load land goods onto your ship, sail to an island or a floating NPC, and trade up through five levels of sea goods until you cash out in Crow Coins. To start you need level 50, Skilled 1 sailing, and any Great Ocean ship (Bartali or better).
Open the barter menu with Esc then Life then Barter, or hit the Barter Search button on the world map. It lays out every available route in one tidy list.
The chain and what each level is worth
A full chain looks like this: Land Goods → Level 1 → Level 2 → Level 3 → Level 4 → Level 5 → Crow Coins. You can cash out early at Level 4 for fewer coins if a route is short and you just want a quick turnaround.
Each level has a weight and a sell value, and weight is the thing that will quietly ruin your day.
| Level | Weight | Sells for | Notes | |-------|--------|-----------|-------| | 1 | 100 LT | Cannot be sold | Starting sea good | | 2 | 800 LT | Cannot be sold | Used for ship gear stones | | 3 | 900 LT | 1 million silver | First level you can vendor | | 4 | 1,000 LT | 2 million silver | Solid Crow Coin returns | | 5 | 1,000 LT | 7.5M or 15M silver | Top tier, best coin payoff |
You can stack the same trade up to 10 times per level (Level 5 is 6 inland and 4 in the Great Ocean), as long as your ship can carry the weight. That is exactly why bigger ships earn more silver per hour.
Parley and refreshes
Every trade eats Parley points, a family-wide pool that starts at 1,000,000 and refills only when you refresh your routes. When it hits zero you are done bartering until you refresh.
Refreshes are limited too. You get 100 Barter Refresh Points a day, or 150 with a Value Pack active, resetting at 6 AM UTC. The normal Trade Item Refresh costs 20 points and has a two hour cooldown (you get 2 a day, 3 with the Value Pack). There is also a Ship Material Refresh that costs 10 then 30 points and rerolls your whole list into ship upgrade goods, limited to twice a day.
The smart move early is to run Trade Item Refreshes for silver and Crow Coins, then switch to Ship Material Refreshes once you have the barter count to see the good ship mats.
Routes that actually pay
Distance from Velia is what drives payout. The further out the barter NPC sits, the more Crow Coins it hands over. Two spots stand out for pure profit.
The Al Halam Sea over by Valencia has Hakoven Island, which pays somewhere around 300 to 600 Crow Coins per Level 5 good. That is the gold standard for coin runs. Margoria, the deep ocean past Lema Island, has floating wrecks like the Shipwrecked Haran's Cargo Ship that pay 150 to 300 coins and occasionally drop rare trade items worth a lot of silver.
The catch with Margoria is you need an Ancient Explorer's Compass, otherwise your world map will not work out there. More on that in the disasters section.
The count gate
A bunch of the good ship mats only start appearing in your barter list once you have done a pile of total barters. Brilliant materials, the ones you need for the Carrack, generally need around 1,000 accumulated barters before they show up. So the early game is mostly grinding count and stocking goods in storage for later. Keep the upgrade mats you barter, do not sell them off for a quick buck.
Fighting Ocean Stalker and Other Sea Monsters
Match the monster to your ship
Sea monsters come in tiers, and going after the big ones in a weak ship is how you sink. Each monster has a recommended ship and an HP pool, and the HP numbers tell you real quick whether you belong there.
| Monster | HP | Recommended ship | |---------|-----|------------------| | Hungry Ocean Stalker / Hungry Hekaru | 300,000 | T2 Epheria Sailboat/Frigate | | Young Ocean Stalker / Young Hekaru | 350,000 | T2 Epheria Sailboat/Frigate | | Adult Ocean Stalker / Hekaru / Young Black Rust | 1,300,000 | Epheria Caravel/Galleass | | Saltwater Crocodile | 2,400,000 | Epheria Carrack | | Nineshark, Black Rust, Candidum, Lekrashan | 3,000,000 | Epheria Carrack | | Goldmont Battleships | 3,000,000 | Epheria Carrack |
If you are still on a Bartali, stick to the Hungry tier. Trying to Ram an Adult Hekaru in a starter boat mostly just costs you durability for no payoff.
What they drop and why you care
Sea monsters are where your ship upgrade goods actually come from. The starter monsters drop Sea Monster's Ooze, which is the bottleneck for the Caravel upgrade (that 150 again). The mid-tier ones drop Tidal Black Stones for enhancing ship gear, plus Manos Stones and assorted ship mats.
The big four each have a specialty. Lekrashan drops Sea Crystals, the gear slots for ships. Saltwater Crocodiles drop materials for Chiro's ship parts, which are the Carrack gear. Candidum and Nineshark drop the Tidal Black Stones and upgrade mats you need for the high-end ships. Point being, every monster feeds a different part of the upgrade grind, so do not just farm one type over and over.
Where to find them
There are two handy habitats north of Oquilla's Eye. The Young Sea Monster Habitat is the friendly one for players in T2 and Caravel-tier ships, with Candidum, Nineshark, and Black Rust spawns tuned for newer sailors. The Lekrashan Habitat is the tougher farm for Carrack-level players who want Sea Crystals.
The daily quests point you at all of this. Dius in Port Epheria sends you after Hekaru or Ocean Stalker, and Croix in Velia has similar work. Out on Oquilla's Eye, Ravikel runs the Old Moon Guild hunter dailies and weeklies for the big monsters, which pay 100 Crow Coins a kill for the dailies and 500 for the weeklies.
How to actually fight them
Stay moving (anchoring just makes you a target), pop FocusFire with Q or E, and use the aim-assisted view to land cannon shots on the side the monster is exposing. Turn with AbruptTurn to keep your cannons lined up. If you are in a battle ship, Ram does big burst damage, just remember it eats 20,000 durability a hit, so keep one eye on the HP bar.
Most sea monsters telegraph their big attacks, so do not sit still. A parked ship is a dead ship against the adult tier.
The big one: Vell
Once a week the game drops a world boss on the ocean. Vell, the Heart of the Ocean, spawns in Margoria north of Lema Island every Sunday and shows up across all servers at once. It is a group event that pulls most of the server's sailors, and the loot table includes Vell's Heart, a rare and very expensive item. Show up early, bring plenty of cannonballs, and do not expect to solo it.
Avoiding Common Sailing Disasters
Running out of rations
Rations drain whenever the ship moves and drain fast when you use skills. Hit zero and your boat crawls, your skills stop working, and if you are against the wind you can get stuck basically motionless. Top up rations at any Wharf Manager before you leave port. As a backup you can convert food into Emergency Rations from the ship info window (press P at the wheel). Higher grade food gives more, so yellow tier is worth around 4,000 rations and orange tier around 22,000. Carry some cooked food on long trips and you are covered.
Letting durability hit zero
Every hit from a sea monster, every rock you crash into, and every successful Ram costs durability. When it hits zero the ship is destroyed. The low-tier boats are gone for good at that point. The Epheria line and up can be recovered at a Wharf Manager, but it still costs silver and it still strands you until you limp back to a dock. Keep an eye on the red bar and retreat from fights before it gets low.
Crashing the weight limit
You cannot barter, and you cannot use skills, when the ship is at max weight. It is easy to overfill on a chain where each Level 4 good weighs 1,000 LT. Plan your route so you deposit goods between hops, and remember that remote-collecting your ship (calling it back to storage from afar) destroys every barter item sitting in its inventory. Do not do that one by accident.
Going out without a compass
Past Lema Island, out in the Great Ocean and Margoria, your world map goes blank unless you have an Ancient Explorer's Compass active. Without it you have no map to follow at all. The compass is built from parts that drop from a daily quest on Iliya Island, and it lasts three days. Pick that quest up every time you pass through and you will basically always have a working map out deep.
Forgetting the level 50 cannon rule
You have to be level 50 to fire a cannon. If you bring an underleveled alt out for a sea monster daily and wonder why nothing fires, that is why. The quest wants a character who can actually shoot.
Getting caught against the wind
Wind direction shows on the ship UI as arrows, and you want that arrow pointing up at the bottom of the ring for max speed. Sail into a strong headwind and you might not move at all. On mid-tier ships you can fold the sails to cut the penalty, or just wait it out and reposition. The further out to sea you go, the nastier the weather gets, so plan routes around it rather than muscling through.
The short version
Refuel rations, repair before you leave, keep weight under the cap, never sail into Margoria without a compass, and run from any fight where your durability drops faster than the monster's HP. Do those five things and the ocean pays out instead of eating you alive.