If you want you could just relocate your workshop and keep your main base. I set up a workshop beside the swamps that's portal connected to my main hub, so I just bring the ore straight to the workshop and do all my forging there. Then I teleport back home with all my crafted equipment. When the swamp is cleared, I destroy the workshop and move on.

Sailing is way too much of a pain in the ass to be manually transporting ore around the map.