How to Get a Ship in Crimson Desert: Build or Buy

You get a ship in Crimson Desert by owning the Charting the Unknown DLC, setting up the Greymane camp at Howling Hill, expanding it until the A Wider World questline appears, and then either building the Small Greymane Ship through a 12-hour shipbuilding dispatch at Vellua or buying one from a fleet merchant with Camp Funds. Ships arrived with patch 2.04.00 on October 29, 2026, and Pearl Abyss classes them as a new type of mount. Below are the exact steps, the purchase prices, the crew roles and how the legendary ships work, as of November 2026.

We checked this against Pearl Abyss's 2.04.00 patch notes and DLC features overview, the Charting the Unknown Steam page, and ship guides from games.gg, Beebom, Destructoid and KeenGamer in November 2026.

What You Need Before Ships Unlock

Ships are expansion content. The Charting the Unknown store page on Steam lists commanding your own ship and sailing to new islands as part of the paid DLC, and Pearl Abyss's 2.04.00 notes describe ships as a mount you can construct through a dispatch mission or buy from fleetmasters around Pywel. The free base update alone does not give you a boat.

The second requirement is camp progress. Pearl Abyss's October 20 feature overview says the ship questline becomes available after you have set up the Greymane Camp at Howling Hill, and the 2.04.00 notes add that the ocean quest A Wider World starts after you complete Howling Hill in the main story and expand the camp above a certain level. In practice that means:

1. Finish Chapter 3 of the main story, which hands you Howling Hill for the Greymane camp.
2. Keep advancing the Greymane faction quests. games.gg points to the Gathered Will expansions under Grounds of the Sunrise as the step that opens the maritime chain, and Beebom names the Expanding the Camp quest.
3. Open the faction section of your journal, find Charting the Unknown, and start A Call from Beyond the Horizon under A Wider World.
4. Meet your comrades at camp and finish the conversation about seeking new horizons. Destructoid and Beebom both say shipbuilding unlocks at the end of that talk.

If A Wider World never appears, the usual cause is an unfinished camp expansion rather than a bug. Go back to the Greymane faction list before reloading saves. Our Charting the Unknown DLC overview covers the rest of the expansion's starting requirements in one place.

Building the Small Greymane Ship at Vellua

The cheaper route in Camp Funds is to build. According to games.gg, the construction route runs through Vellua, the fishing town in the Grace Estate area, which you liberate through the Hernand faction quest Vellua Fisherman's Guild and its Beyond the Silent Waves chain. Rescue the chief first, clear the occupiers (including the enemies on the makeshift wooden towers), defeat the boss Sir Catfish and talk to the chief again to finish the liberation.

Once Vellua is free, the Small Shipbuilding mission appears among dispatch missions. Beebom says to send at least five comrades, budget 10,000 in currency plus some materials, and wait 12 hours for the work to finish. games.gg lists the full bill as 600 stone, 600 wood, 1,200 food and 10,000 copper, and also gives 12 hours. Resting in a nearby bed is the quickest way to pass that time.

When the dispatch completes you receive Knowledge for the Small Greymane Ship and the follow-up quest, Where the Wind Blows. Return to Vellua, read the Harbor Notice Board, inspect the supplies, talk to the comrades by the supply cart to unlock the Harpoon, then find Ship Manager Hopkins and choose Manage Ship to assign a crew. games.gg notes that if those comrades are missing from the cart, coming back during the day usually fixes it. After that you walk down the pier, board, and take the wheel.

Buying a Ship Instead

If you would rather spend Camp Funds than wait on a dispatch, ships can be bought from a Fleet Office manager. Pearl Abyss uses both "fleetmaster" and "Fleet Office manager" for these merchants, and Hopkins in Vellua is the first one most players meet. Beebom and games.gg list the same four purchasable ships and prices:

• Humble Rowboat: 2,000 Camp Funds. Fine for short hops, not for open water fights.
• Small Hernandian Ship: 40,000 Camp Funds. games.gg calls this the sensible first purchase for regular ocean travel.
• Medium Hernandian Ship: 1,200,000 Camp Funds.
• Large Hernandian Ship: 6,000,000 Camp Funds, with the best health, speed, acceleration, handling, inventory and crew capacity of the four.

The jump from 40,000 to 1.2 million is steep, so most players sail the small ship for a long time. Pearl Abyss also allows customization: the 2.04.00 notes say ship parts are sold by fleetmasters in Demeniss and Delesyia, and the DLC's Twitch Drops event included customizable ship parts as rewards, with the second week's rewards usable only by DLC owners. Hopkins also handles repairs and recovery, including ships you left out at sea.

Crew Roles and What Each One Does

A ship is only as capable as the crew you assign before leaving port. games.gg explains that roles cannot be changed at sea, so plan the roster around the trip:

• Gunner: enables cannon fire, and each extra Gunner adds cannons firing.
• Carpenter: restores ship durability, and more Carpenters repair faster.
• Deckhand: fishes for food while the ship is stationary and can join island development dispatches.
• Lookout: marks nearby reefs and fish gathering areas on the map.
• First Mate: takes the helm when you leave the wheel during combat.
• Rigger: furls and unfurls sails as speed changes.

For naval combat, Gunners and Carpenters come first. For pioneering new islands, leave room for Deckhands, because those island missions draw on them. Uncharted islands are pioneered through missions, according to the patch notes, and several of them hold Abyss Cresset puzzles; our Ancient Ruins puzzle guide includes the Bergal Island stone puzzle you reach by ship.

Legendary Ships and Their Materials

Beyond the store ships, guides document special vessels built from blueprints. KeenGamer's Phantom Ship guide says you first sink the enemy Phantom Ship in the Sea of Silence southeast of Delesyia to get a treasure map, then dig up the blueprint on Iliya Island. Construction happens at Stoneward Harbor and needs 10 comrades, 4 days and 4 hours, 750,000 Camp Funds, 45,000 Camp Stone, 45,000 Camp Wood, 90,000 Camp Provisions, 5 Natural Pearls, 10 Giant Jellyfish Skin and 30 Obsidian.

The Flagship of the East follows a similar pattern. KeenGamer lists two blueprint pieces on land (one in Helmara in the Tashkalp region, one at Fisher's Haven north of Delesyia), the Unfinished Ship Construction mission at Stoneward Harbor, and the same Camp Funds, stone, wood, provisions, comrade and time cost, plus 5 Natural Pearls, 15 Sea Fan Coral and 50 Malachite. It reports 14,000 health and a Dragon Naval Cannon. Game8 also names the Drunken Catfish and the Assault Ship of the East as special ships that use Natural Pearls. Guides group these vessels differently, so expect naming to settle as the expansion matures. Since every one of them needs pearls, our guide to Natural Pearl locations is the next stop once you have a seaworthy boat.

All of this costs Camp Funds on a scale the base game never asked for. Leasing a business is the steadiest way to fund it, and our guide to raising the Facility Tier shows how to get a sawmill or restaurant earning. Banking Gold Bars is the other long-term option, though patch 2.04.00 reduced the spawn rate of Golden Apple Hedgehogs, which some players had used for gold.

Your First Voyages: Practical Tips and Recent Fixes

Sailing launched with a fair number of rough edges, and the hotfixes since October 29 changed several things new captains run into. Knowing them saves a reload or two:

• Finding your ship. On a controller, pressing L3 on the map jumps the focus to your summoned horse, wagon, ship or Blackstar, a feature added in 2.04.00.
• Pioneering prompts. Patch 2.04.02 added a notification in the right-hand menu when you sail into an area available for pioneering, so you can start the mission directly instead of hunting for it.
• Boarding problems. The same patch fixed characters catching fire and being unable to board, and fixed ships that stayed stationary or appeared without crew.
• Trade cargo. Ships carry trade goods for maritime trading, and 2.04.06 fixed some goods vanishing when moved from a ship to a wagon. Update before a long trade run so you are on the fixed build.
• Steering and anchorages. Patch 2.04.08 fixed the wheel not rotating while steering and ships spawning on land after loading a save near certain island anchorages.

Treat the first few trips as shakedown cruises. Sail short coastal legs, check your crew screen after each landing, and only head for the open ocean once you have Gunners and Carpenters assigned and a few Camp Funds set aside for repairs at the harbor.

Skipping the Unlock Grind

Ships sit at the end of a long chain of camp and faction work, and plenty of returning players simply want their old progress filled out before they set sail. The store's Crimson Desert Unlock All Pack is a service for PS5, Xbox and PC that adds to your latest save instead of replacing it, so your quests stay where they are. Its page lists all fast travel points unlocked, every weapon and armor piece at max level 10, all elements and the full skill tree, all mounts, pets and horses including the legendary ones at max level, 200,000 Silver and 240 inventory slots. The page does not mention ships, so treat the boat itself as something you still build or buy.

Read the full details on the Crimson Desert Unlock All Pack page, or compare it with the other listings on the Crimson Desert services hub.

Frequently Asked Questions