would prob have been a serpent if out sailing with a group or solo always a good idea if one of the party/yourself have the Moder buff for fast escapes if you get attacked and can't fight them off as it puts the wind to be always behind you

Just leave your boat going in a heading at max speed, press E to get off the rudder and then turn around and shoot it with arrows, its probably the easiest encounter for the highest rewards aka its meat

Serpent is indeed likely to be death to a raft, but by the time you reach a karve you should be able to take them on if you wanted. I wouldn't advise taking on multiple at a time in the karve but the chances of finding multiple at one time also aren't that high to begin with.

If you do decide to fight rather than flee, the scales can be nice for the shield but they sink in deep water and the shield it offers can't really parry so it has somewhat limited use but can be helpful around swamp-mountain tier. The meat however, floats, and makes some of the best food in the game so even without the harpoon I find it worth it to kill the angry snakes.

The harpoon is not necessarily an item you find, it is one you craft but it requires crafting materials from another seemingly rare ocean mob. However, you don't HAVE to have the harpoon to get the scales either. If you have a serpent spawn relatively close to a shoreline, especially a channel or inlet, you can kite it into the shallow water and let it snack on your boat while you finish it off, boom, scales and meat:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2622395014

It was a sea serpent.
If you have bronze you need to make nails so you can get a better ship. The raft is useless.

It was a sepent, gives one of the best foods available.
And items that allow to make a nice shield.

But you need a bow to get the meat
and a harpoon to draw it in not so deep water for the scales

Originally posted by wizard_of_woz:

It was a sea serpent.
If you have bronze you need to make nails so you can get a better ship. The raft is useless.

I have a boat, the raft felt slow and given how quick that thing was a raft is suicide..

Originally posted by Nameless:

It was a sepent, gives one of the best foods available.
And items that allow to make a nice shield.

But you need a bow to get the meat
and a harpoon to draw it in not so deep water for the scales

Yet to find a harpoon, packing a bow of lvl 3.

Is it a 100% occurance on night trips? I think beyond that I'm concerned about losing the boat especially out so far in water.

Originally posted by HeikoFennec:

Originally posted by wizard_of_woz:

It was a sea serpent.
If you have bronze you need to make nails so you can get a better ship. The raft is useless.

I have a boat, the raft felt slow and given how quick that thing was a raft is suicide..

Originally posted by Nameless:

It was a sepent, gives one of the best foods available.
And items that allow to make a nice shield.

But you need a bow to get the meat
and a harpoon to draw it in not so deep water for the scales

Yet to find a harpoon, packing a bow of lvl 3.

Is it a 100% occurance on night trips? I think beyond that I'm concerned about losing the boat especially out so far in water.

If you have the Karve, then don't worry about it. You can out run them.

lots of enemy will chase your boat if you get near a shore.
the dangerous ones are
- if you go near a swamp, leeches will chase and chew on your boat. wraiths as well, but they are rare.
- if you go near plains, dethsquitos will cause A LOT OF damage to your boat if they hit it.
- out in the ocean, sea serpent.

in all cases you can kill or drive off the enemy with a bow. Rafts can't take the hits from most of these, so you will be sunk and die if you do not outrun or shoot them.

the other stuff that chases you cannot catch even a raft sailing with the wind, eg grey dwarves and trolls will swim after you but they can't keep up and are mostly harmless.

dont travel close to plains on boat, mosquitos in plains biome will fly water and does 90 damage. killed me and destroyed my boat while i was sailing in fog........... Farken unfair game.

The serpents only spawn in Ocean biomes, and only if it's nighttime or/and stormy. So, it's a good idea to keep an eye on the minimap if sailing under either of the last two conditions -- unless you're specifically hunting serpents, of course.

One literally ate me last night.
I fell off our boat during a storm, because we were fighting the thing with bows so I wasn't sitting or holding fast, thanks to either lag or a wave (it happened too fast for me to know which). Boat was at full speed so no chance of climbing back on board.
Just before I drowned the serpent closed its jaws around me.
Thankfully, my friends made it to shore and managed to build a portal to the base.

Originally posted by Nameless:

It was a sepent, gives one of the best foods available.
And items that allow to make a nice shield.

But you need a bow to get the meat
and a harpoon to draw it in not so deep water for the scales

Do you really like the serpent shield? I switched back to my previous one as with this you can‘t parry and it feels like it slows you more than in the description mentioned.

Most spawns are in night time , in daytime too but when rains or storms , night + storm = 10% of spawning very close of each others ( each 64m )

You can lose them with a karve and FULL WIND UP if there isnt a good tail wind you can loose them well , longboats are the best for fight and lose them , best speed and resistence
Best arrows against them are ice arrows , can be killed with 3 or 4 shots

Originally posted by Gregomoto:

Originally posted by Nameless:

It was a sepent, gives one of the best foods available.
And items that allow to make a nice shield.

But you need a bow to get the meat
and a harpoon to draw it in not so deep water for the scales

Do you really like the serpent shield? I switched back to my previous one as with this you can‘t parry and it feels like it slows you more than in the description mentioned.

Serpent shield got a buff making you almost inmune to pierce damage ( arrows ) , and full upgraded have a block armor of 66 , is pretty neat for swamp-mountain , but lose much in plains
Iron bucler still bestie for people that knows parry

Originally posted by Gregomoto:

Originally posted by Nameless:

It was a sepent, gives one of the best foods available.
And items that allow to make a nice shield.

But you need a bow to get the meat
and a harpoon to draw it in not so deep water for the scales

Do you really like the serpent shield? I switched back to my previous one as with this you can‘t parry and it feels like it slows you more than in the description mentioned.

Wait, you can't parry with the serpent shield?? Guess no point in crafting it. Got to parry.

Why anyone uses anything other than Black metal I don't know