OSRS' new Sailing skill is finally here, and somehow, someone's already got its rarest drop

I woke up this morning to the sound of Bobby Darin's 'Beyond the Sea,' stepped out into my garden, my shark mug full of coffee, and breathed in the crisp air of my coastal town. It's a beautiful day to go sailing. While I spent a good chunk of my working life on museum ships, I never actually learned my sheet bend from my clove hitch. Thankfully, I don't need to read up on the English Channel conditions, or even venture out of my house to take to the high seas, as today Old School Runescape finally launched its new Sailing skill.

In the lead up to Sailing's arrival in the hit MMO, I spoke to the Jagex team about how OSRS' first skill since 2006's Hunter came to be. Technically, 2010's Dungeoneering was in Runescape 2, but that doesn't count. Mods Kieran, Elena, and Ed spoke at length about how the team had done everything in its power to remain true to the 'Old School' feeling, and though I've barely dipped my toes into the blue tiles beyond Port Sarim, I'm already getting the tinglies. While Sea Shanty 3 is nowhere to be seen, the collaborative work with EDM star Alan Walker more than makes up for it. The soundtrack bangs, so props to the audio team on that.

Sailing takes us on an epic voyage across Gielinor, from Zeah's coastline to the shores of Mos Le'Harmless. As you work towards that all-important skill cape, you'll take part in challenging trials and make new allies (dap up Tortugans).

Sailing also provides all new ways to train over ten different skills as you progressively improve the capabilities of your ship, so prepare to have at least 50 wiki tabs open at any given moment. Most importantly, there's a cute new turtle pet, Soup, who I will lay down my life for at a moment's notice (just don't tell my pet fox). One player managed to snag it after just 131 XP - a one in potentially millions chance - and I'm really, genuinely happy for them; I'm not punching the ground out of jealousy at all.

The final phase of the Varlamore expansion finally cleared out the last dead tiles on OSRS' map, but Sailing's given purpose to the vast span of ocean tiles that have hitherto remained window dressing. Now with the means to go beyond Gielinor's landmasses, I can't wait to uncover everything they have to offer.