This guide will teach you some tricks for aiming all of the vessels currently in the game, as it is the most important skill for a captain to know. Unlike strategies, which can be developed over time through experience, aiming is much harder to learn. This is simply because if you don't know how to aim your vessel, enemy ships will annihilate you. Even if you manage to survive such annihilation, a mutiny is likely on the way.

At the start of my pirating career I had a few problems with aiming as a captain, and constantly being mutinied was irritating because I felt I was given too little time to learn. I feel there is no need to go through this, which is why I have made this guide: to try and make your life easier so you can get straight into the fun part of captaining the victories!

For the sake of consistency, I have taken all the example pictures with my vessel and the enemy vessel travelling in opposite directions, along with the enemy vessel always being on my left.

If you find yourself moving in the same direction as the enemy, you should reverse the instructions, e.g. if I tell you to aim at the front, instead you should aim at the back of the enemy ship, etc.

If you find the enemy on your right, everything applies in the same way, including the tip above.

When aiming at the front of the enemy ship, ensure you are aiming at the front of their hull, and not at the tip of the bowsprit, which is the long pole that sticks out in front of the boat.

The gunboat is the smallest and most manoeuvrable boat in Blackwake and can be a force to reckon with when used wisely.

To aim the cannons on the gunboat you should use this thin notch on the sides to align your ship. This notch is a little hard to spot, and I suggest learning to estimate where the notch is if you intend on using the gunboat often. As this dent is difficult to spot in intense moments, I do not recommend relying on the dent itself.

From this point, you need to use your finger or imagine a line that is perpendicular to your ship, and turn your gunboat so it is aiming at the middle of the enemy's vessel as shown below. This will align your cannons with the enemy boat.

Due to the gunboat's low cannon count there is large margin for error, making it easy to align it at longer distance targets.

The hoy is one of two vessels that have been in the game from the start. Now, it is a less popular but still superb boat to use, being a jack of all trades, master of none.

This is one of the slightly more annoying ships to aim because the upper deck has no sides or useful rigging to help aim. The one thing that is there is the darker plank on the floor.

To align the hoy's cannons locate this plank and trace a path to your target. Notice how this path is not perfectly perpendicular to the hoy's side. Turn your hoy so that this path you have imagined is targeted on the front side of the enemy's vessel if the enemy is going in the opposite direction to you, as in the picture, or the back side of the enemy ship if they are going in the same direction.

If you are facing a larger vessel or one farther away and you find yourself panicking, don't worry, as long as you're aiming close to where you're supposed to be aiming you'll have no problems.

The schooner is a very popular ship and according to the developers. 1/3 of all ships that are built are schooners. This has to have a reason: Its stronger firepower when given to an able crew allows it to be a formidable enemy, even to larger vessels such as the galleon. This, paired with its speed, it is ever so slightly slower than the gunboat, allows it to be extremely good. Good to the point where some call it overpowered.

The easiest way to aim this beast is to use the second peg-like object from the left, as shown below.

You'll want to align your schooner using this. Have this peg aiming to the middle of the enemy ship. This'll result in all of your rather spread out guns to be able to take a shot at the enemy at once.

The junk is another rather rarely used vessel, and it is underwhelming to use, but nevertheless here's how to aim it!

With the junk it's extremely simple to aim, since there is practically a crosshair on the side of the ship, the crosshair being: the poles! Find the third pole from the left, as shown below

To align your cannons turn your vessel so this pole is in line with the front of the enemy ship if they're going in the opposite direction, or the back if they're going in the same direction.

At longer distances, there will be more room for error which is helpful, because the front/back of the enemy ship can be annoying to have to align with especially when you have poles blocking your view.

The cutter fits in a strange area. While comparable to the schooner in many ways, it's different in other ways. It has less firepower and is able to move faster. For some strange reason, it is less manoeuvrable than the schooner. Unlike the schooner, it has stern guns which, along with it's fast speed, suggest this boat should be used as a sort of 'hit and run' boat. Although I find its stats odd, feel free to try it out. Here's how to aim it.

Find the second bar from the right, the one shown below that is above the supply box.

This bar should be aimed right at the centre of the enemy boat to ensure your cannons will have no problems with positioning.

The bombketch is probably supposed to be a fortress on water. I deem it the 'close range sniper'. As per its loadout, it appears to be meant to only support friendly ships with cannons and mortars, yet to use the selling point of this boat, the mortar, you need to be extremely close to the enemy, hence the 'close range' part. This usually means that even when this ship is chosen the mortar is used seldom, leaving you with little reason to pick the bombketch over any other vessel available to you. If you still have some reason to use this, here's how to aim it.

Find these loops in the rigging, the ones closest to you when at the wheel, and the little bar.

Aiming is a little strange with the bombketch. My advice is to actually try to use the middle of these two objects to aim, something like so.

As for the mortar, if you are close enough to your foes there's no aiming required on the captain's part, but unfortunately at a longer distance it's useless.

The carrack seems to be the galleon's smaller brother, packing many cannons and a slow sink rate. Evidently, the idea of this ship was for it to be a vessel in the "small vessel" class with the ability to compete with enemies from the "large vessel" class in a broadside.

To aim this little beast find the middle line of the square rigging, that is the third string from the right.

To ensure you allow all your crew to fire in a broadside aim the lower part of this string at the middle of the enemy ship.

When farther away it should look something like this.

Now we come to the larger scale boats. First up, the galleon. This is the other boat that has been in Blackwake from the start. It is still a very effective ship that packs a punch. You will sometimes encounter these, but I wouldn't say they are more frequently seen than the other two large vessels.

Before, I said the junk was rather simple to aim because it had a crosshair-like side which helped to aim. On the galleon, there is no doubting it, it's probably the easiest boat out of all of them to aim; it has a cross on the rigging which you just need to aim at the enemy for those few seconds before they are decimated.

Find this cross.

Now, very simply, you will want to aim this cross at the enemy. Try to aim the cross at the front of the enemy ship (or contra of course if the vessels are moving in the same direction) because this will guarantee a destructive broadside from your crew. As you will see below, my galleon is not perfectly aligned with the enemy's front, but all my cannons are still sufficiently well aimed. This demonstrates that although I recommend always aiming for the respective end of the enemy, you shouldn't worry too much about it when facing larger ships. On the other hand, against smaller ships, you may have to be a bit more accurate.

The cruiser is a massive ship that can be accessed by large crews. Currently, it is the largest vessel in the game. This means it is also the most powerful, packing 10 cannons per side. Due to this large number of cannons which are all placed on a single deck it is a very long boat making it a slow turner and also making it more difficult to correctly angle your ship at enemies.

To aim the cruiser find this rigging here, as shown below.
As shown in the image, you should be turning your cruiser so then when a straight line is drawn going perpendicular to your hull the line will hit the middle of your target.

Aiming is of utmost importance here when facing smaller ships or when closer in. You will need to be very accurate in your positioning or a few cannons on the front or back will miss out on the action. At long distances this ship is much more lenient, and I was able to turn to an angle like this while still allowing all my cannons to hit the enemy without any individual cannon having to be turned.

The brig is not unlike the cruiser: it is large and has a lot of cannons. It is also surprisingly manoeuvrable seeing it's size. Packed with 7 cannons a side, 2 bow cannons, and some awesome floating stern cannons, it's quite a popular pick for the larger crew vessels.

To aim this thing find the tallest wooden stump. This one.

The bar should be aligned with the enemy's front if they're going in the opposite direction to you, or back, if they're going in the same direction to ensure you get a good broadside on them.

Apart from the fact that the stump you should use to aim blocks your view pretty heavily, as long as the enemy isn't in a gunboat and you're more than 100 meters away from your foe, you should have no problem training all of your cannons onto the enemy.

The xebec can be compared to the cruiser. It is slow and has a poor turning rate, but has an overwhelming amount of cannons. It should be used in a similar style as the cruiser: from range, making sure to avoid close combat at all costs or it could seal an easy victory for your enemy.

The xebec is not forgiving with its sides near the captain. It leaves the sides clear, a great thing for visibility, though awful when it comes to targeting.

To aim the xebec, due to the previously mentioned lack of objects around the helm, I have two suggestions for aiming. The first suggestion is the more accurate one and makes use of the swivels. The problem with that method is pretty obvious. As soon as someone uses this swivel it can throw off the aiming.
That is why I have devised this other method of using the plank. Although this second method is less accurate, it is more reliable due to the plank being static.
I recommend you practise the second method more due to it's aforementioned reliability, but I also recommend you utilise the first method whenever you are able to.
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Method One
First of all, ensure the circled swivel has not been used on your vessel (if it has been moved, use method two).
If it has not been used, align your xebec in a way such that this swivel is pointing to the centre of the enemy ship like so. This will ensure a perfect alignment of cannons.

And from far away:
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Method Two
Locate the plank that has been outlined here in the image.
Draw an imaginary line following the direction of this plank. Angle your vessel so this line ends up just in front of the enemy boat's front. Doing this will align your ship's cannons.
The farther from the enemy you are, the farther in front of the enemy this imaginary line will need to be. Don't stress too much about perfectly aligning it at long distances, as even if you mess it up slightly your crew will have light work of turning the cannons minimally to be able to fire at the enemy.

Another new ship, the bombvessel is "the bombketch's bigger brother". It, indeed, packs two mortars, a good amount of cannons, and an irritating slow turn rate.

Another similarity to the bombketch is the lack of objects around the captain that could allow for easier aiming. So, as with the bombketch, you will need to use the wooden railings.
You will want to find the middleground of the two wooden posts. A line drawn from the middleground of the two posts (light green line) should hit the middle of the enemy boat. If this line hits the middle of the enemy boat, your cannonballs will too.

Aiming at a distance doesn't pose a major difficulty on this vessel.

The two types of cannon I have not discussed is the bow (front) and stern (back) cannons. These cannons are simple to aim. For the bow cannons, use your mast as a crosshair, while for the stern cannons you often have a lot of leeway, so just show your vessel's stern to the enemy and they'll take a couple of cannonballs to the hull. Pretty simple.

You will often come across a situation where the enemy is fearful of your newfound perfect aim, and they begin to turn away. My tip for these situations in terms of aiming is to pretend they are showing their broadside. Aim at them if they were retaliating. This means you may end up lining up shots that from your perspective look like they will miss. Maybe something like this:

Here you can see, the enemy boat is not side on to my boat. What I have done is drawn the outline of the enemy boat if it was side on. Using this as the target, I have aimed accordingly. Some of your cannons will not be able to get a shot at the enemy, but this should maximise the amount that do. The less angled away the enemy is, the more cannons will hit.

If you are so inclined, you can use the other method. This is where you slowly turn towards the enemy while facing your side towards them. The goal is to allow your cannons to take turns in firing at the enemy. Here, at no point will all your cannons be able to hit, so you will have to ensure you have turned enough to allow the last cannons to fire.

Well, that's it! As I mentioned at the start, with a bit of practise you will have no problem aiming with your ship and it'll become second nature.
At the end of the day, if you're ever worried you will fail to perfectly line up all of the cannons on a ship, don't be. If a cannon or two on the end is misaligned, thanks to the relatively new update, the crew can simply turn it to be able to hit the enemy. If you manage to misalign the majority of the cannons, it is likely you will get kind feedback from the crew helping you out. I encourage you to frequently ask your crew if you have aimed the cannons well when learning to use a new ship.

If you feel something is amiss in the images or explanations in this guide, please comment it down below and I'll have a look at it!

And finally,
Good luck!