For the 2nd time today my boat has hit a piece of Flotsam and lost a panel. I can understand if I crash into a log it might take damage but seriously this was a piece of wood. Then I am salvaging a wreck and when I go to leave it is impossible for me to not hit a few more pieces of wood and it's down to the bottom goes the boat!!!!!!

For the 2nd time I now have to undertake a ridiculous overburdened swim of over a kilometer to the nearest boat.

Ridiculous!!!! Skellige must have terrible boat building materials, how do they do all that raiding when a boat bumps a piece of wood in the water and it loses 1/8th of its hull integrity...

Please give us boat repair kits

So 30 minutes later, new boat and sure enough fight off 10 Siren's and avoid any damage to boat whilst salvaging but go to leave and hit 2 dead sirens and damage 1/4 of my hull integrity........ BLOODY HELL!!!!!

I sense another long swim coming on!!!!!!

OK so sail 50 metres get attacked by a Siren out of nowhere and it rips a whole chunk out of my boat. Last salvage I couldn't dive either forgot that till the one I just got to and still cannot dive, so I have to float till a drowner pulls me down.

Is it a known issue with the ? directly west of Kaer Trold and south of Spikeroog that you can't dive or am I just luck????

Boat repair kits would be easy mode and defeat the whole purpose of the exercise. Use the xbow! Shoot those bastards in the eyes! Works like a charm each time. Unless you get infinite Siren spawn :|

You can dive anywhere. Just try a slightly different spot if your Geralt gets stuck like an olympic swimmer :P

No you can't dive when the game just plain will not let you - says mashing, hitting and holding the "C" key. Sixth dive site in a row and the game will not let you dive!!!!! Have had to restart the game as no friendly Drowner's to pull me under the water at this site.

I'd rather it be easier and be able to fix my boat rather than have to swim kilometer's to another boat or land. My problem is that the boats damage FAR too easily. For example I just got in a new one and it bumped the wharf and took damage before I'd even got anywhere. I am not sure what you think the point of the exercise is but mine is to have fun and having the boat so easily damaged and leaving me in the middle of the ocean so I have to swim for ages to shore is not fun.

Re the Siren's I have the killing under control but the time it takes to stop the boat, wait for Geralt to actually be able to do anything and then attack - the Siren had already ripped the chunk out of the boat.

Sorry to pick on boats but I juts happen to be cleaning up "?"'s in Skellige.

However just now turning the boat on calm seas, the boat took damage?????

I have wondered the same thing. I mean we are carrying around "hardened timber" and nails, wire, string, you name it, and we can't fix our boats?!

And in Skellige and some parts of coastal Velen, Novigrad, are boat builders that can't sell boat repair kits?

Thing I've learned when I see sirens is when they are near - to keep them from damaging the boat - as quickly as possible, I stop and release the tiller, and jump in the water (make sure you have "equipped" the crossbow first). Dive and the sirens will follow you underwater. Use your crossbow to kill them. Also sometimes a siren will manage to hang on to the side of your boat - this will damage the boat too. All you can do is kill it quickly. But trying to fight a flock of sirens from inside the boat will increase the chance of them doing damage to the boat. They also are harder to kill than from underwater.

Would make a cool mod but would be a waste of CDPR's time to develop this. The vast majority of gamers will never sink a boat. Me included. Sixty hour playthrough yielded never more than a small ding.

Yeah that's pretty much my tactic too, just takes a second for Geralt to release the tiller some times and in that time the bloody things latch on to the boat!!! Tends to happen to me mostly when I am trying to clear several water ? at a time. Just annoys me how easily they get damaged!!!

It would be great if they would have just made the boats a little stronger than tissue paper. ;)

In all seriousness, the first time I damaged a boat I was coming up to shore in a slow controlled manner so I wouldn't have to swim to shore. There was a slight rubbing sound and the next thing I know a chunk of the boat is missing. I've seen boats being beached before and these boats shouldn't be breaking. The boat intergrety system needs a little work. I also had the flotsom damage. I've been boating before and while you need to be careful, these boats should be a bit more durable.

No wonder Skellige is littered with shipwrecks.

Exactly!!!!

I stopped one the other day at an island and it had no damage, didn't even touch the sand and as I sat at the tiller looking at the pretty Drowners on the beach, the boat just sunk underneath me!!!!!!!