Greetings.
I want to report multiple small issues with sailing, which combined together make this literally the worst aspect of Black Desert Online, period. Please, if you can, fix at least some of them, so that this can be as good as other lifeskills.

1. Sea autopathing. This is probably the absolute worst thing in BDO. There are two options and both equally bad. When you reach a "corner" in the path, your ship stops as if it hit a reef, and then has to pick up speed again. And don't even get me started on BreezySails. Sometimes, the path updates, but sometimes, it locks to the last point before using it, making the ship go full 180 degrees, go back to that point and there stop, flip around and start picking speed again. Not to mention what happens if there's an island in near vicinity. Like...how did something this bad ended up in the game...
2. Ship moveset as such. Let me explain: We call this turn-based sailing, you press W, ship enters "Level1 speed" and stays there for several seconds. Then, another turn occurs, ship enters "Level2 speed" and stays there for several seconds etc. It literally feels like you're pulling the ship by a rope. Would it be that hard to make the ship gradually increase speed instead of having these turns? The best example of this moveset suffering is probably that the best way to stop the ship is spam "dismount"...
3. Getting on/off the ship. I can't even count how many times have I tried to jump onto the pier and instead ended up in the water. Could you do something like "anchor at port" which would force your ship into a set position near the pier and then drop a plank which you could use to get on/off?
4. Ports clusterf*ck. So many ships on top of each other. Okay, one solution I made up: If there are too many ships, have them disappear when they enter port (the same way you make them pass through each other) and keep only yours/your party members ships visible and tangible. Not breaking immersion and not feeling like you're about to enter a rat den.
5. Desyncing and lag. Nothing breaks immersion like seeing your friend spasming around with their Carrack.
6. Ships floating above water. I'm not sure, but the last time I saw a ship, it wasn't a hovercraft, it was actually partially submerged. Almost all ship models just skim the water surface when they float, incredibly breaking immersion. A fix for this could be incredibly easy, just pull the models down a bit. Caravel suffers from this the most, along with those small red-sail npc ship and massive transport ships, but all are affected.
7. Character shrinking when boarding a ship. I don't know whose idea was that, but... just why. Why not just upscale those ship models 10% instead of "faking" their size by shrinking your character when you get on board. It was a horrible idea, breaks immersion incredibly, please, get rid of it.
8. Make ship's inventory directly salable like with a Cart. It's so absurdly annoying to move each of those T5s into your inventory, switch menus, sell it, go back, repeat...
9. Margoria ghost ships. Could you...at least give them some purpose, instead of just making them prevent you go afk through margoria or dismounting you in the middle of Crocs hunts?

To sum it up: During the Heidel Ball, you said that your company motto is something along the lines of "There is nothing as 'good enough'." Please, live up to it and fix these issues, so that we can actually enjoy sailing as much as the other aspects of BDO.

Another option would be to make it so that you can teleport to shore or to the wharf - similar to how you're able to teleport to the wheel. The current situation is particularly egregious when you consider how garbage the swimming speed is in this game (and it's silly to switch to the diving suit just to get ashore) and how it's often a pain to get onto the wharf from the water. Personally, I use a lahn for bartering in order to reduce how much I end up in the water, but you really shouldn't have to do that.

Similarly, it would be nice if the range for teleporting to the ship's wheel were increased. IMHO, if you're in bartering range, you should be in range of teleporting to the ship's wheel. You shouldn't have to jump into the water in order to get back on your boat. Ideally, you'd never have to get into the water to get to shore or back to your boat if you're within bartering range. And yes, it's true that for bartering itself, you don't have to get off your boat, but it's not uncommon that you have to do so while bartering in order to do quests, and it seems like a decent rule of thumb for a reasonable distance for getting off and on your boat without having to swim.

they got their hands full till winter, dont expect anything any time soon

I definitely support all these suggestion 100 percent

Just commenting here, hoping to see some improvements. 2 years later and many of those issues are still present unfortunately. 

Autopathing is horrid, considering the time it takes to barter, it just makes it take even longer

Amen, I agree with all points here.  More stuff:

Increase sailing exp (exponentially!!!), both from the daily quests and from just sailing around.

Fix this horrid croc map system to get a Nol

This new boat we're getting with the new zone?  SCRAP IT.  Nobody wants it, nobody asked for it.  This isn't the "new content" we've been asking for.

Increase Crow Coin acquisition, by A LOT.  Make sea mobs drop crow coins, or claws of the waves.  All of them.

Bartering?  The last "barter rework/enhancement" was a band-aid and did nothing to fix bartering.  Increase boat weight capacity, get rid of the 4-hour barter refresh, increase value of T5 barters, increase our Parley.

More barter spots!  There's a lot more islands on the way to hakoven.  There's oquilla, scallywag, crow's nest, and a whole mess of islands that could be used for barter spots.

Fix boat trading!!!!  Add a sellable Trade Manager to both Illya and Oquilla.   Add buyable trade managers to other islands, port epheria, ancado, hope pier, shakatu abandoned pier, etc.  I specifically built an Advance for my 2nd carrack for island trading, and you killed it.  Along with the skin I bought for it, if this isn't fixed, I WANT A REFUND.