If you're reading this, you probably saw this guide and said "Wh- Rowboat? Are you serious, OP? Is this a meme guide?" to which I reply "Well, kinda?"

The rowboat is simultaneously the most boring, exciting, easy-going, and dangerous vessel to sail in.
Your humble vessel is both the hardest to detect, and the easiest to sink, making it the ultimate weapon in stealth-based piracy, allowing for quiet getaways, easy infiltration, and lots of strong tucking opportunities. Or, if PvP isn't really your strong suit and you're not afraid of early onset carpal tunnel syndrome, rowboating allows for perhaps the most peaceful method of finishing quests, or just beachcombing for those ever-so-rare barnacled chests.
Let's start by highlighting the pros and cons, and then go into specifics.

Pros:

• Extremely hard to detect and unless a pirate is directly looking at you at all times, even easier to slip away from conflict
  
• High manoeuvrability, being the only boat that has no issue selling on Daggertooth Outpost
  
• Leaves no mermaid unless you get a fair ways away from your mighty vessel
  
• Comes in three classes, two of which have useful strengths or utility
  
• Will not be targeted by emergent events such as skeletons, megalodons, krakens, or some world events(more on that later)
  
• Makes stocking up a breeze, just fill your pockets and sail!
  
• Cannon rowboats cheese some particularly bothersome world events, making FoFs go by in 15 minutes or less

Cons:

• If you die, blackscreen or otherwise leave your vessel, you lose EVERYTHING.
  
• Fingers might hurt after a while

So you've booted into the game, you've found a server, and you wake from your grog-induced stupor at a tavern, or if you're out of luck, an island somewhere. Let's go over the steps to obtaining your rowboat.

If you have a captained ship with a rowboat attached from a previous game, you may skip this section.

Step one: Stock up
Fill your pockets with the best provisions you can find. Given that you'll only have what you can carry on you when you drop into the rowboat unless you're a fanatic that overstocks everything, don't sweat grabbing too much. Try to find some curseballs, and food that's at least better than coconuts. Remember, the order of food goes Worms < Bananas < Coconuts < Pomegranates < Mangoes < Pineapples < Cooked food.
For firebombs and Blunderbombs I like to do a 4:1 split, carrying a single Blunderbomb for emergencies. As you will likely lack the resources to sink ships, and Blunderbombs inflict damage to rowboats, it's smarter to carry firebombs so that if the need comes you can board, slay, set fires, and wait out the fire.
Got all that? Alright, let's sail.

Step two: Find a rowboat
Sail from island to island until you find a rowboat. Don't forget to orbit around larger islands to ensure you haven't missed one. This is both the easiest and hardest stage, as RNG is a spiteful mistress. Just keep going until you find one.

Step three: Get to rowing
Found one? Good. If you have a voyage planned, put it down and get to work. If you don't, time to start wandering until you find something interesting on an island. You can pilot your dinghy by pressing A and D to control your oars. Try to press and release them at the same time so that you don't veer off to one direction. If you need to turn suddenly or slow down, Q and E will brake on the respective oars, allowing for a semi-smooth handbrake turn.
"But OP, how do I navigate?"
Glad you asked. With your eyes, pal.
Alright, jokes aside - navigating without use of a map can be difficult if you don't know the area. No shame in keeping RareThief's interactive map[maps.seaofthieves.rarethief.com] up, although you'll have to rely more heavily on in-game navigation by means of compass and land marks.

Step four: Getting the essentials
Once you're properly acclimated, your rowboat should look a bit like this:
Your inventory:

• Ammo boxes: Common and very useful when you don't have an infinite supply ammo box. The more the merrier!
  
• Supply crates: If you have any plans to obtain a cannon rowboat, which you should, you're going to need easy storage of supplies. I don't use the rowboat chest because perchance you sink your rowboat by accident, that's everything lost.
  
• Tridents, AKA PvE Sticks: You ever just say "♥♥♥♥ it" and decide to do some long-distance anger management to ocean crawlers? This is when you use them. Also highly useful if you don't have a cannon rowboat and want to run world events.

Speaking of which, let's talk about rowboat types.

All rowboats have some things that are constant between rowboats. They are:

• A lantern on the front, perfect for holding any coloured lights you may somehow have and making yourself known
  
• 4 seats - One pilot, three passengers
  
• The rowboat chest, which serves as easy storage until you find a storage crate
  
• A perch for any pets you might have

Everything else is up to your own ability.

If you end up with one of these, I'm sorry. There is no benefit to one of these, so good luck until you find a better rowboat.

Not a bad option, honestly! The extra manoeuvrability allows for some easy sea-to-land-to-sea movement by means of the harpoon and holding down Right Click, if you're really desperate. Bear in mind that dragging your rowboat across the ground may damage it, which you may not want to do.
BUT WAIT! THERE'S MORE!
After an accidental discovery, it's come to my attention that you can ram other ships using your harpoon, by reeling your prow into the ship from close range. So in other words, you can stealth sink enemy ships with pin-point precision.
[Warning: this will damage your rowboat as well, exercise caution when rowboat ramming]

This bad boy can deal with so many problems that you didn't even know you had. Skeletons? Outta my sight. Ocean crawlers? See ya, loser! Player ships? They'll never see you coming! Just don't stand still.
Ghost ships and skeleton ships? Well...
Alright, let's talk about the main drawback of the cannon rowboat. Unlike its unarmed brethren, the cannon rowboat can be targeted and shot at by skeleton ships, skeletons on island cannons, and ghost ships. This wouldn't be too much of a hassle if it wasn't for the fact that skeleton ships can turn on a dime, and ghost ships are never alone, and fire faster than your last open crew galleon on meth. I'm not saying you should not attack them, but if you do: Good luck. Seriously, good luck. The only tip I can give is that your humble vessel can only take 4 to 5 hits max, and NPC ships will stop targeting you if you simply jump off the cannon rowboat. Thankfully, you can at least repair the rowboats now. Nice, right?

Now you might be looking at this and asking yourself "Is this possible with more than one person?" To which I reply YES!
That being said, to best ease your comfy voyage with friends, I've prepared this checklist to ensure that you don't end up solo slooping for the rest of your immediate future.

• Can your friend handle a rowboat?
  
• Is your friend patient enough to row for 5 hours for no good reason?
  
• Are you planning to be in closed comms[discord, skype, etc.,] while you row?
  
• Is your friend good at navigation?

If your friend or friends check all of these boxes, YOU'RE IN THE MONEY! Figuratively. You make ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ as a rowboatsman unless you're stealing FOTD loot.
Now, that being said, it stands to reason that you'll likely be doing PvP more should this happen, as you'll be able to take larger risks for higher rewards. What do I mean by this?
Because you're playing one life with revives, it's important to remember that you can play a bit more risky - Things like powder kegs, sword lording, boarding alert ships - as you have a backup pirate[or multiple!] to cushion your ineptitude. Keep your comms clear, and if someone's down, REVIVE THEM! You might not get a second chance.
While i'm not telling you to pick a certain loadout if your own picks work for you, I do firmly recommend that you consider the Sword + Eye Of Reach combo, as it allows for easier underwater combat, an infinite ammo weapon, and good damage across the board.

Why not the pistol or blunderbuss?
The pistol covers a lot of areas but runs short in nearly every place you're in on average while rowing. Because you're either underwater, on a small boat in the mid-range, or mid-deck amidst violent combat, your chances of readily using the pistol run short more often than not. So the pistol's out due to lack of convenience, and the blunderbuss is good until you run out of ammo. Which doesn't sound bad until you remember that in most cases, your ammo is finite. Unless you're near an ammo box, your chances of blundering go drastically down, and trust me, I know how easy it is to effectively mag-dump with the blunderbuss. Plus, if you're caught out of position, or underwater, you have some way of defending yourself from any range.

Alright, that's all well and good, but what about sinking ships?
If you're confident in your crew, you can readily sink any ship with just a normal rowboat; It's not necessarily recommended because you'll have to burn it down, which means at least a solid 5 minutes uninterrupted of fire and rising water before you start to see results, but it IS doable. That being said, if you're in possession of a cannon rowboat, you have a great advantage - Your positioning's going to be on point, your rowboat can take a direct cannonball no problem, and you can put holes in the ship from angles the enemy didn't even know possible. That being said, a 3-man team is best for this:

• One man to the oars,
  
• One man to the cannon,
  
• And one man to cover fire.

The first two are self-explanatory, as positioning, steadying aim, and shooting are all necessary in sinking anyone, but the final guy has the important role of keeping you from getting shot. In the event that your opponent has an eye of reach, it's your job to keep them from peeking at you without making them pay for it. Ideally, this person is also your first boarder, as your crew maintains pressure by putting more holes in the ship.

I'd have pictures of this setup, but none of my friends play SoT any more. :(

Ok, I initially wrote this part of the guide as a joke, but there is some genuine benefits to rowboat fishing, specifically on one of the harder grinds - Battlegills.


Above: One slippery bastard

Battlegills can only be caught in a handful of places: Skull forts, FoFs, FotD, near skeleton ships, and the skeleton fleet. The final one is our optimal hunting spot of choice, because:

• as long as the skele ships aren't already spawned in the circle, you'll get battlegills anywhere
  
• nobody does the skeleton fleet unless they're trying to cut through to sell at reapers
  
• the event is disgustingly common

Now, as far as I can tell, if an actual ship enters the event, the skele ships will actually spawn and target that ship.

Pic related is when I was fishing for battlegills. I was wondering why I was only getting splashtails until I heard cannon fire.

BE WARNED: Skeleton ships can and will target cannon rowboats. Skeleton ships can one-ball you. Sail into the fleet at your own peril.

Additionally, you could also set up shop at a local skull fort or, if you're feeling lucky, set up your own Fort of The Damned.
That being said, it's not actually that bad to fish at a fort with a rowboat, as long as you can convince anyone coming to do the event to leave you alone. This does, however, come with the risk of you dying and losing all your precious battlegills, so take this option as you will. Doubly so with FOTDs and FoFs - plenty of people like to tuck on both, and you may be seen as a threat, even when you don't mean to.
Don't bother with skeleton ships. I imagine you could hop on the front of a skeleton galleon and fish there, but I never managed to do it personally.

Oh, and here's that image from my hard drive that I put here before I fleshed this part out.

That's it folks. Enjoy getting mad and losing everything many times over.
Here's some various tidbits and things you might want to know:

• If you're trying to destroy a rowboat, you can use a keg, a cannonball, or a few blunderbombs to make short work of one. Just don't die.
  
• If you care about your sloop, leave a piece of treasure buried somewhere so that you'll get a notification if it sinks.
  
• Be careful how close you park your rowboat to the shallows of islands - Ocean Crawlers can damage your boat, for some reason. Be especially careful of the clam bastards, as one charge can take a chunk of life out of your rowboat. Rare plz.
  
• Stay out of the storm. Being in the storm can damage your rowboat and leave you treading water real fast. If you're headed somewhere and aren't certain if the storm's headed that way, check the Weather Report at Ancient Isles University.[www.merfolkslullaby.com] Bear in mind that the weather report may be two and a half in-game days ahead. Might just be a time zone thing, though.
  
• You have no idea how many people just don't see rowboats. I once stayed outside a FoF with two other crews present, while holding a Reaper's Bounty, and it took them 15 minutes to notice me standing in the open sea.
  
• You can bait waves of Fort skeletons to the shallows, then shoot them all with a single cannonball from a rowboat. Same goes to the Skeleton lords, and I suppose Ashen Lords. Good luck with those, though.
  
• Remember that your cannon's recoil will have actual physics, so if you're not facing directly towards what you're shooting, you'll careen off in an unfortunate direction.
  
• If you're booling on an island and see a skeleton captain appear, or see a second skeleton captain, another player ship is very close by and you should prepare to run or otherwise deal with them.
  
• The skeleton fleet world event won't recognize your rowboat, not even a cannon rowboat, as a ship, and thus will not cause skeleton ships to rise up. Note that skele ships will still target you if they are active in the world event.
  
• I advise against doing the fleet, as skeletons are fairly accurate, and oneballs suck.
  
• In the event that you take on other players, I highly recommend using the eye of reach, as many pirates will attempt to snipe you from the relative safety of their ship or in the water near your craft. Keep a weather eye out for the tell-tale sparkle of a spyglass - or a scope...