I actually enjoy it. Used to own a small, old, cheap sailboat IRL. And I miss it terribly.
The landscape and sky in Valheim are gorgeous. I love to just watch the coast slide by, the fish jump, and the changes to the weather and sky.

When I started sailing in game and ran into storms, I figured the sailing sim wasn't super detailed. But just for style's sake, I RPd it as if I were in a real boat in a real storm. Good thing I did. Was "hotdogging it" in a storm, launched my Karve off a wave like it was a skateboard ramp, and when I hit the next wave she took hull damage. O_O Okay, so your boat really can break up in a bad enough storm. And then I found out on the forums that if you screw up sailing in a storm (carry too much sail in a crosswind and/or catch a big wave on your beam {side}) your boat will capsize. This leaves you in the water, with the upside down boat slowly taking hull damage until it sinks. When you're caught out on the ocean in a really bad one, I suggest furling the sail and keeping the bow pointed into the waves.

But in the end, when you fight with headwinds, and fight your way through storms (or just beach your ship until it passes, and hope there's not a troll close by) and finally pull into your dock with 120 iron ore in the hold, that's really satisfying.

Hmm. . . was going to post a YouTube link to the song "The Dane-wife's Lament" (aka Widowmaker) from Kipling's "Puck of Pook's hill." And it ain't there. Need to dragoon my Lady Wife into recording it for my channel.

Ah, what is woman, that you forsake her,
and the home-fire, and the home-maker,
to go to the old gray widowmaker?

She has no house to lay a guest in,
but one great bed that all may rest in,
where the gulls cry, and the sea-birds nest in.

She has no strong white arms to fold you,
but the ten-times-fingering weed to hold you,
out on the rocks where the tide has rolled you.

And when the signs of the Summer thicken,
when the ice breaks, and the birch-buds quicken,
yearly you turn from our sides and sicken-
sicken again for the shouts and the slaughter-
you go down to the laughing water,
to look at your ship in her Winter quarter.

You forget your mirth, and all talk at the table,
the horse in the shed, and the kine in the stable,
to pitch her sides, and go over her cable.

Then you row out where the storm-clouds wallow,
and the sound of your oar-blades ringing hollow
is all we have left in the months that follow.

Ah, what is woman, that you forsake her,
and the home-fire, and the home-maker,
to go to the old gray widowmaker?