Port

This article is about the Port function on ships. For the interface listing the various ships and ferries available at an island, see dock.

A pirate with officer privileges aboard a ship may port when the ship is resting at a league point with an island. Additionally, some voyages will return the vessel to the nearest port on failure. These include non-sinking flotillas, and non-sinking blockades. Furthermore, ships left at sea will port automatically after a period of time, a behaviour known as "autoporting".

When a ship ports, its might rating disappears and any booty aboard may be divided. Furthermore, those aboard the ship may step off onto the island it is ported at and crew members on the island may board the ship. Officers may also replenish the ship's supplies of rum and cannon balls while ported, known as restocking.

Autoporting

Ships abandoned at sea will return to the most recently visited port (or the destination port, if the ships are a league or less from the destination) after 15 minutes with no pirates aboard. During this time, if they are boarded the count will reset. If the ships are not left at a league point, brigands, barbarians and player ships may engage them in a sea battle before it ports. The ship is reset upon porting.

All booty aboard an abandoned ship is lost. The hold and coffers are unaffected, although some may be lost to attacking ships.

On the other hand, if a ship is autoported because it was at sea when the server rebooted, then it will be whisked back to port and the booty will be automatically divided.

Restrictions on porting

When a flag is at war with another and they are blockading, a ship on the attacker's side is unable to enter the "island-side" safe zone, and the following message is displayed:

Ye may not put into port at this island since you are acting in a most unfriendly way towards it!

Ships wishing to port at a currently blockaded island must navigate through the blockade board to do so. (However, an event blockade is bypassed by default, but is accessed via the "Join Event" button from both ocean-side and island-side.

Bribes

Ships are required, if the owner is in a flag at war with the island owner, to pay a fee for the guards to look the other way and allow one to port. The fees are based on the maximum number of swabbies required to move a vessel.

Bribes are as follows:
Sloop: 50 PoE
Cutter: 70 PoE
Dhow: 70 PoE
Fanchuan: 70 PoE
Longship: 90 PoE
Baghlah: 100 PoE
Junk: 100 PoE
Merchant Brig: 120 PoE
War Brig: 140 PoE
Merchant Galleon: 190 PoE
Xebec: 220 PoE
War Frigate: 330 PoE
Grand Frigate: 460 PoE

Ship reset

Any damage and/or bilge left on a ship will be reset, and all cannons unloaded, after 15-30 minutes of sitting in a port with no one aboard. The count will restart each time a pirate steps on the ship during this window.

Notes

• Prior to Release 2017-02-07, a common tactic to avoid embargoes on islands was to swap ship deeds to a flag that is not at war with the governing flag of the island.

• On pillages, jobbers are often observed to leave their duty stations (and sometimes abandon ship) when a ship enters port. This may be due to both the lack of a puzzle to play, and the association of porting with booty division. For this reason, many crews and officers hold the view that ships should only port when it is necessary (either to take on supplies or to divide the booty).

• A ported ship can be used to whisk pirates between different archipelagos at no additional cost.