Smooth Sailing

v0.3.4·Updated 2026-09-23

Server-synced Valheim boat and sailing tweaks with favorable wind modes, configurable wind intensity, improved rowing, and expanded ship exploration.

About this mod Author’s original text

Smooth Sailing

Smooth Sailing is a lightweight, configurable boat and sailing quality-of-life mod for Valheim 1.0, built for BepInEx + Jotunn.

It improves sailing without replacing the core ship experience, with selectable favorable-wind modes, configurable sailing wind intensity, improved rowing, and increased map exploration while traveling by ship.

Features

Favorable Wind

Smooth Sailing can provide a favorable effective wind while controlling a ship at Half or Full sail.

Four sailing modes are available:

  • Off - Vanilla wind behavior.
  • Dead Astern - Effective wind directly behind the ship.
  • +60° Offset - Favorable wind offset to one side of the ship.
  • -60° Offset - Favorable wind offset to the opposite side.

The offset angle is configurable and defaults to 60°.

A server administrator can cycle the modes in-game using the configured Admin Toggle Key (default: K):

Off -> Dead Astern -> +60° -> -60° -> Off

The selected mode is synchronized so participating clients use the same sailing behavior.

Sailing Wind Intensity

Smooth Sailing can independently control the effective wind intensity used for sailing while a favorable-wind mode is active.

Three intensity modes are available:

  • Vanilla - Uses Valheim's current environmental wind intensity.
  • Minimum - Enforces a configurable minimum sailing wind intensity while preserving stronger natural wind.
  • Maximum - Always uses maximum sailing wind intensity.

The default intensity mode is Vanilla, preserving Valheim's normal variation in wind strength unless an administrator chooses otherwise.

Accurate Sailing Visuals

When a favorable-wind mode is active:

  • The physical sail responds to the effective sailing wind direction.
  • Sail cloth strength reflects the effective Smooth Sailing wind intensity.
  • The circular sailing wind indicator displays the effective wind direction and favorable-wind state.
  • Positive and negative offsets appear on their corresponding sides.
  • The minimap wind arrow remains tied to Valheim's true environmental wind.
  • Valheim's world/environmental wind remains unchanged.

This allows the ship's propulsion, sail, and sailing HUD to represent the effective wind actually affecting the ship while preserving normal world-wind information outside the sailing system.

Improved Rowing

  • Configurable forward rowing speed multiplier.
  • Configurable reverse rowing speed multiplier.
  • Forward and reverse speeds can be tuned independently.

Ship Exploration

  • Configurable map exploration radius multiplier while aboard a ship.
  • Makes ocean exploration and coastline mapping significantly more convenient.

Multiplayer & Server Configuration

  • Gameplay settings use Jotunn synchronized AdminOnly configuration.
  • Server administrators control synchronized gameplay settings.
  • Favorable-wind modes can be changed live by an administrator.
  • Selected wind modes are synchronized to participating clients.
  • Designed for dedicated-server as well as single-player use.

Requirements

  • Valheim 1.0.x
  • BepInExPack Valheim 5.4.2350+
  • Jotunn 2.30.0+
  • Smooth Sailing must be installed on the server and all participating clients for multiplayer use.

Installation

Install Smooth Sailing through a compatible mod manager along with its required dependencies.

Manual Installation

Place:

SmoothSailing.dll

inside:

BepInEx/plugins/SmoothSailing/

The mod will generate its configuration file after the game is launched.

Default Configuration

[General]

Enabled = true

[Tailwind]

Tailwind Mode = DeadAstern

Offset Angle = 60

Wind Intensity Mode = Vanilla

Minimum Wind Intensity = 0.5

Admin Toggle Key = K

[Exploration]

Ship Exploration Radius Multiplier = 2

[Rowing]

Forward Row Speed Multiplier = 1.5

Backward Row Speed Multiplier = 2

Configuration

General

Enabled

Enables or disables Smooth Sailing.

Default: true

Tailwind

Tailwind Mode

Controls the effective sailing-wind mode.

Available values:

  • Off
  • DeadAstern
  • PositiveOffset
  • NegativeOffset

De

Install & use Install: BepInEx plugin

  1. The archive from playbuff is the mod itself — usually a BepInEx plugin (a .dll or a plugin folder once unzipped).
  2. Recommended: use a community mod manager (such as r2modman) — pick this game, import the mod, and the manager sets up BepInEx and its dependencies for you.
  3. Manual route: install the BepInEx loader in the game folder, then drop the unzipped .dll or plugin folder into BepInEx/plugins/.
  4. Launch the game — the BepInEx console logs every plugin it loads; seeing this mod in the log means it is installed.

Mods with listed dependencies need those installed too, or they will not load. Options are usually changed in-game or in the plugin's config file. In multiplayer, the host and every client need the same mods installed.

Dependencies

Install these first, or the mod will not work:

denikson-BepInExPack_ValheimValheimModding-Jotunn

File & checksum

Filename
Smooth_Sailing-0.3.4.zip
File size
102.9 KiB