http://www.gamefaqs.com/computer/doswin/game/11098.html

But it just stands like this:
How to get a boat:
When you see a pirate ship on the shore move up right next to it, if you
can win the battle, the ship is yours!
But i have never seen a ship on 3 days....and i have played almost 4 hours per day....aarrggh........do i have to get all 4 marks before??

Originally posted by kukus444 But i have never seen a ship on 3 days....and i have played almost 4 hours per day....aarrggh........

That's why they made ships "buyable" in Ultima IV.

Don't just stand in place. That's like waiting to be struck by lightning. What you need to do is to follow the coastline of whatever land you are on...hopefully that's the main land mass and not a tiny island. The more you travel around the coastline, the more likely you are to catch the attention of a pirate ship.

Two concerns, the first being that going "walkabout" on the coastline will definitely attract monsters. That is unavoidable, be prepared to fight...a lot. The second concern is that even if you find a pirate ship, they can kill your party pretty easily. You have to dodge the majority of their shots. Even if you manage to get it to touch the coastline at the same time your party touches the ship, you still have to rid the ship of pirates.

Once you see a ship (even searching the coastline, that may be a loooong time) save immediately. That way if something starts to go wrong, you can bail and restart back to the point you spotted the ship. Once you have the ship, save again.

I seem to remember that for boats to appear you have to have reached some level. Could be wrong though. I'm certain there was a discussion about this in the dragons newsgroups.
Google usenet searching ultima3, boat in rec.games.computer.ultima.dragon and rgcu.series

Okay.....🙁 then i think i will have to spend 3 more days at that game to get a boat....aaarrrgghhhh 😠 .....i really starting to hate the music on ultima 3...because i have heared it for sooo long...😁 .....but i hope that i can turn down the volume on the midi music, so i can play some mp3 in the background, hehehe.....

Do i have to have all the 4 marks to get a boat???😕

Originally posted by kukus444 Do i have to have all the 4 marks to get a boat???😕

No.

Note that this guide is for the Apple version, so you can ignore the Apple-specific data.
http://db.gamefaqs.com/computer/apple2/file/ultima_iii.txt

Apparently pirates hang out near shrines as well. Might try that.

Seems you need to wait, wait, wait and wait (nothing about levels according to: http://groups.google.at/groups?q=boat+pirate+ … 04ax.com&rnum=2 )
Some more on it on http://groups.google.at/groups?hl=de&lr=&ie=U … trel%26rnum%3D6

(hmm, seems I can't use the hyperlink feature of the board somehow)

muuhuuuuuu :,( i suppose i have to wait a very long time for it....over 100.000 moves 🙁 .......cant i use some hex things to get a boat???

oh shit.....i have made 141.940 moves 🙁...that is to much, isnt it?

Yeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh...!!!! after 145.000 moves i gave up...and i searched for some kind of editor...and i found ultima saved game editor...there you can create all weapons and boats and horses on ultima 1-5 (only boat in 3)....but i hate cheating..so i will only create a boat...and then i will burn that program on a cd....and delete it on my computer...and when i am going to play all ultimas next time....then i will get my cd again and create a boat on ultima 3 😀....yeah yeah.....thx for your help anyway......
here is the program if you didnt already know it:

http://membres.lycos.fr/xenerkes/

Actually, I've found it fairly easy to get boats to appear every time I've played it.

The best I can determine, and this may not be exact. The game says, "place a new monster." It then randomly determines a spot, and it seems to be weighted strongly towards land here. If the spot is invalid (for any reason,) it picks another spot. It does this until it finds a valid spot. If the spot is on land (99% of the time it seems,) it generates a random monster. If it is on water, a boat is generated. The monster then starts moving straight towards you.

So, the trick is to start eliminating valid land spots 😀 I just ran around killing things and leaving the chests behind, as monsters cannot exist on a chest. I usually like to try and form figures with the chests as well. Once I'm comfortable with the number of boats I have stashed around (I hate losing them to the whirlpool,) I can go back and get all those chests I left. Once, at only level 3, I had enough boats to form boat bridges to every island in the game 😀

If you need money, run into a dungeon and do some hunting there. You usually get it faster anyways. Or, you can get every 3rd chest, or whatever balance you decide on 😀

Originally posted by FeedingDragon The game says, "place a new monster." It then randomly determines a spot, and it seems to be weighted strongly towards land here. If the spot is invalid (for any reason,) it picks another spot. It does this until it finds a valid spot. If the spot is on land (99% of the time it seems,) it generates a random monster. If it is on water, a boat is generated.

Sounds about right.

So, the trick is to start eliminating valid land spots

Cruising the coast seemed to work for me. *shrug*

Once, at only level 3, I had enough boats to form boat bridges to every island in the game

*heh* So I'm not the only one to do this...

BOAT SOLUTION BELOW

I played U3 this week for the first time since the Apple II days, found myself going crazy trying to find a boat (got up to over 200k moves and had one player at level 22...still no boat).

I had no luck finding answers online, though I must say the idea of eliminating valid land squares is an excellent idea and I'm sure it would have worked eventually. I tried it for a few hours and then I remembered a trick from long ago.....

The auto-save feature can be manipulated to produce as many boats as you want for the cost of resurrecting a character. All you need to do is board the boat in Lord British's castle*, attack the guard who follows you out there, let one of your characters get killed and then close the window U3 is running in. The auto-save feature will record the fact your on a boat, have a dead player etc. and when you reload the game you'll be in a boat literally on top of Lord British's castle. Save the game again, and sail away.

I know I'm 7 years or so late on this thread, but if I found it looking for the answer, I figured others might, and nobody should have to spend hours and hours and hours waiting for a boat just to continue the game (especially frustrating when you know the game well, you know you're stuck until you find a boat, and you would rather have fun attacking guards and dungeon crawling to build up your characters rather than endless orcs etc. roaming the coastline).

*Finding the boat outside LB's castle is well known, but if anybody needs the info on that, here it is. Go to the throne room, unlock the door on the west side of the room. As soon as the hallway turns North, go north until you see another door to the west, leading to the outside of the castle. Unlock the door and head west along the moat, then south....you'll eventually come to a boat you can board.

I have a solution for the Commodore 64 version. I was stuck with high level characters so I created two new ones. Once they became level 3 the boats appear. Save it, then bring back your old characters and your in business. Haywire