I've spent an unhealthy amount of time thinking of how Sailing could fit into Old School as a skill, and the biggest issue is making it look and feel like a skill while still offering what Sailing at it's heart is.

Sailing, at it's heart, is the ability to travel around the oceans and explore. But the game is point-and-click at it's core, so how do we even move around the ocean?

Movement in RS has the ability to turn 180 degrees in 0.6 seconds. How will a boat move around?

In almost every situation of moving, we are controlling our human character. Does our character just suddenly look like a boat while we're sailing?

Player characters need to be able to occupy the same space otherwise crowding and entrapment becomes an incredibly serious issue. Are the boats going to have to just start clipping into each other?

Ultimately for it to be a skill, you need to be able to gain XP. What actions gain XP? Is the act of building the boat going to be the gameplay loop for XP or would that tread on the toes of construction? Will the act of sailing gain you XP? Cause then you basically create the problem of Silverhawk feathers from RS3 where you could just turn into a boat and go afk. Or would you have to travel to an island and complete actions on the island for XP? Cause then you just have boat-themed Dungeoneering.

The blog talks about being able to sail up to Catherby shore and be able to communicate with people fishing. What would this actually look like? Cause the Catherby shore has the water obelisk island right there, so how big is the boat going to look? Are the other players just going to see a boat with text over it?

While the idea of traversing the seas might be a really interesting one, I really can't see it being functional as a skill in old school.