... loses skills. Then there is insurance so a player can have covered part of empty hull cost. Starter missions , if done properly give a couple of ships to play with, so a week-old player can already afford a few deaths without impending his progress too much. There is slowed-down siege mechanics ...

Without a dock you will simply have to sail the ship back home.

(I'm not sure if snekkja counts as ship but to me it would make sense to call dugout and rowboat "boats" while snekkja and knarr are "ships" because only latter can cross oceans.)

... albeit harder?) and instead ship combat had its own special system, featuring ship mechanics such as ramming or shooting flaming arrows at other ships to damage them and ultimately cause them to no longer be able to be sailed (but not destroyed! utter destruction should take far longer).

... and to make it so, to make everyone jumpin happy :D Considering the description of the realm blessing Marriage of the sea, it should: It says that SHIPS are built at a higher quality, it's just that Knarr used to be the only ship with quality ;)

... your way, this is the only real danger if you take 10 - 20 tarsticks with yourself it should be enough to keep sailing for a while, and check the ships condition every a few minutes to see how fast it gets destroyed (just repair and cancel the repair to see, if the ship is damaged just a little ...

... them actual waterfalls. The waterfalls in mountain biomes will be obstacles for swimming people, boats, log boats (forgot their name) and large ships. People will have to go on land, find a way to walk up and pass the waterfall and then swim again. For small boats and log boats, you will have ...

... amount of logs. What's far far more common is way way too much charcoal. no to technological advancement before you know it we are building space ships with laserguns

... that can be moved when empty or when filled loaded to the cart\wagon\ship in the way things are loaded to the raft. Since we have coninents and ships, that might be a better, more realistic way to transport things over the sea.

... EVE Online where more experienced characters are limited in what they can do to lesser ones - implemented through the bigger and more powerful the ships (that only higher trained characters can man) there are, the less effective these perform against small vessels (simply from being no longer able ...

Various enhancements/upgrades to be attached to knarrs or other boats and ships could be interesting, for example you give your knarr a larger cargo or a stronger hull but sacrifice some speed in exchange for those upgrades. Even something like giving ships ...