Tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOTIo_8ze1o

WARNING: Ships can crash and sink or explode! Be careful!

Ships are broken down into different ship types with different properties.

Before you can activate a ship, your build must meet the following requirements for that particular ship type:

• Size (minimum and maximum # of blocks used)
  
• Ratio (% of blocks that must be a certain block type, like wool for sails)
  
• Specific block requirements, if applicable (this does not apply to all ships; refer to ship type details)

You must also place the following signs on the ship:

• Sign with the text of the ship type, for example: “Dinghy” without the quotes.
• Sign with the text “[helm]” without the quotes. This is to turn the ship.
• If you would like the ship to be able to auto-cruise, you need to add another sign with the text “Cruise: OFF” to a block; the sign can't be free-standing on the ground.
• Finally, one sign with the text “Release” without the quotes. This lets you unlock the ship and make changes to it.

Air ships are basically the same, however, note that you can also create ascend and descend signs to cruise up and down. These are similar to the cruise sign, so it would just be “Ascend: OFF” and “Descend: OFF”.

Ships that are fuel-powered require a furnace. Fill the furnace with fuel before activating the ship. It will burn through the fuel as it moves. See ship type details for that type's specific fuel burn rates.

In the table below, Distance is the maximum distance traveled (in blocks) on one item of fuel, based on the particular ship's fuel burn rate.

Once your build is complete and it meets the requirements, right-click the sign you made that lists the ship type. You should see text indicating whether activation was successful.

Once the ship is activated, you can do things like:

• Left or right click the helm sign to turn the ship (left to turn left, right to turn right)
• Right click the Cruise sign to turn on the ship's auto cruise function
• Put a stick in your hand and right-click to manually move the ship in the direction you're looking. This is good for things that require fine movements like docking.

Warnings:

• Be careful about docking your ship too closely to materials like wood and wool. When your ship is activated, it may think those things are part of its structure and steal them!
• Don't use blocks like furnaces (unless it's fueling the ship itself), beds, etc. while the ship is moving. These blocks will get disconnected from the ship structure when the ship moves.
• Don't use blocks with multiple states, like composters. They will work when empty, but may get disconnected from the ship as their states change.

As of 9/20/21, ships can move mobs as well, not just players. Warning: Don't use leads on ships, they will bug out when the ship moves. You will need to contain the mobs you're transporting some other way, like high walls.

Note: Ship requirements and properties may get tweaked over time.

For now, ships have strict wood and sail/balloon requirements, but this may be changed in the future.

From small to large:

• Dinghy
• Skiff
• Sailboat
• Frigate
• Galleon
• Carrack
• Brig

From small to large:

• SmallBalloon
• LargeBalloon
• Dirigible