Boats & Watercraft (every vessel + water content)

Rust's ocean is a separate game inside the game. Highest-tier loot lives out there (Cargo, Oil Rigs, Underwater Labs) and so do the most expensive PvP mistakes. Every vessel runs on Low Grade Fuel (LGF), every vessel is lootable, and every vessel gets hijacked the moment you walk away with the engine running.

Watercraft at a Glance

All boats spawn with 50 LGF when purchased. All boats accept up to 500 LGF in their tank.

Kayak

Entry boat. 50 scrap for the BP at Fishing Village, plus 25 scrap for the paddle BP. Crafted from 600 wood, 100 cloth, 75 metal frags.

• HP: 200
• Fuel: None — alternating left/right click with a paddle
• Seats: 2 (both paddlers help reach full speed)
• Use case: Wipe-day fishing, river crossings, cheap recon. Stay within ~200m offshore.

Skip it the moment you can afford a rowboat.

Rowboat (Motor Rowboat)

The workhorse. 125 scrap at any Fishing Village vendor.

• HP: 400
• Seats: 4 (driver, 2 mid passengers, bow seat with stash beneath)
• Storage: 1 small box under the bow seat
• Fuel rate: 1 LGF per 10 seconds (~6/min) at full throttle — a full 500 tank runs ~83 minutes
• Top speed: Slow. Noticeably worse than RHIB, especially loaded

When to use Rowboat vs RHIB

• Solo/duo coastal fishing, Small Oil Rig, river runs: Rowboat. Fuel savings beat raw speed.
• Cargo Ship, Large Oil Rig, group PvP, loot ferrying: RHIB. Extra HP, storage, and bulletproof windshield pay for the 175 extra scrap.

RHIB

The premium combat/utility boat. 300 scrap at Fishing Village.

• HP: 500
• Seats: 6 (driver behind bulletproof windshield, 5 passengers)
• Storage: 36 slots — by far the largest of any purchasable boat
• Fuel rate: 1 LGF per 5 seconds (~12/min) — a full 500 tank runs ~41 minutes
• Top speed: Fastest surface vessel in the game

RHIB advantages

• Bulletproof glass protects the driver from frontal AK fire — critical at Oil Rig
• Cargo Ship boarding: matches Cargo's speed long enough to ladder the side or ram the rear platform
• Large Oil Rig: full 5-person raid team + ammo + meds in one trip
• Loot ferry: 36 slots = a whole monument run home in one bottom

Always bring 2x stack spare LGF on any RHIB run over 10 minutes.

Tugboat (added July 2023, Deep Sea update)

Rust's mobile base. Free — Tugboats spawn naturally in the ocean near Harbor monuments, typically 1–2 per server. Whoever boards first and authorizes at the helm owns it.

• HP: 3,000 (more than any other watercraft)
• Build privilege: Tugboat has a baked-in TC at the helm — you cannot place a normal TC, you auth at the wheel. Privilege covers the entire deck and hull.
• Buildable area: 3 doorways take doors/locks (2 bridge + 1 below-deck). Deploy boxes, lockers, bags, furnaces, workbenches, small refinery below decks.
• Fuel: High consumption — bring 1000+ LGF for any serious voyage
• Top speed: Slow. It is a tugboat.

How to defend a Tugboat

• Sheet metal doors + code locks on all 3 doorways immediately on claim
• External walls along the bridge railing block grapple-hook boarders
• Locker + bag + meds below decks so you can respawn if sunk
• Park in deep ocean — sharks become your perimeter alarm; griefers can't C4 from shore

Can a Tugboat be raided?

Yes. 8 C4, ~16 rockets, or ~10 torpedoes destroys one. Sinking floods the interior and exposes unlocked containers. Tugboats are the #1 target for organized clans day 3+.

Solo Submarine

The Underwater Lab key. 200 scrap at the Fishing Village vendor (spawns with 50 LGF).

• HP: 500
• Seats: 1 (driver only)
• Storage: 12 slots
• Fuel rate: ~6 LGF/min
• Depth: Safe 0–50m, light pressure damage 50–100m (1 HP/s), crushing damage 100m+ (5 HP/s). Max practical dive ~45m for normal lab moonpools.
• Torpedo: Single forward launcher. Torpedoes cost 75 scrap per pair at Fishing Village. 150 damage per hit, fire rate 1 per 4s, range 500m.

Solo Sub use cases

• Underwater Lab insertion — surface inside the moonpool, run the puzzle
• Cargo Ship harassment — torpedo from below
• Oil Rig flanking — surface beneath the rig, ladder up the blind side
• Tugboat raiding — ~10 torpedoes sinks one when you can't get C4

Duo Submarine

300 scrap. Two-seater with significantly upgraded firepower.

• HP: 700
• Seats: 2 (driver + periscope passenger)
• Storage: 12 slots
• Periscope: Passenger can scan the surface while submerged — critical for stealth Cargo Ship approaches
• Torpedoes: Dual launchers — twice the burst damage of the solo sub
• Dive/surface mechanics: Same depth tolerances as solo. Hold Space to surface, Ctrl to dive. Submarines move slower underwater than on the surface.

The duo sub is the Underwater Lab raiding vehicle. Driver manages fuel; passenger periscopes and fires torpedoes.

Sharks

Real PvE threat anywhere you swim deep.

• HP: ~100
• Damage: ~20 HP per bite to a naked, ~10 HP to fully geared. Bite cadence ~2 seconds while in range.
• Spawn: Dive sites, underwater lab exteriors, deep ocean around moonpools and treasure spots
• Counters: Speargun (cheap kill), submarine torpedo (overkill), or stay in your sub. Never swim down to a lab moonpool without diving gear unless you accept the risk.

Sharks ignore boats on the surface — they're only a problem when you're in the water.

Water-Only Monuments & Objectives

Cargo Ship

Spawns every 50–60 min of uptime, follows a fixed sea route, docks at Harbor. Board via side ladders, player-placed ladders, hidden red containers during Harbor dock, or helicopter drop. Loot: locked crates (hack the computer, 15-min timer), scientist drops, military crates.

Small Oil Rig

3 scientists, single locked crate (15-min hack). Green keycard. Solo-friendly.

Large Oil Rig

8+ scientists incl. Heavy, two locked crates, red keycard room. Group content. Locked-crate alarm summons rival defenders.

Underwater Labs

Procedurally generated seafloor dungeons. 3 labs per map (fewer but larger). 11 crate types including elite, tech, fuel, ration. Puzzles use green/blue/red keycards + fuses. Reset ~40 min.

Fishing Village (Small & Large)

Safe zone. Sells all boats, fishing rod BP, paddle BP, diving gear, hazmat, torpedoes.

Fueling Boats

All boats run on LGF only. Crafted 3 Animal Fat + 1 Cloth = 1 LGF, or 1 Crude Oil = 3 LGF at a Small Oil Refinery.

Boats only consume fuel when accelerating under power. Coasting and idling are free — but a running engine means anyone can hop in and steal it.

Refuel at your base, a safe zone, or from spare LGF stacks in the boat's storage.

Common Boat Mistakes

• Engine running on the beach. Anyone walking by yoinks 300 scrap of RHIB and your loot. Exit and clear the driver seat before walking off.
• Parking in PvP zones. Don't dock at the foot of Large Oil Rig's ladder. Park behind a rock on the blind side.
• No spare LGF. Empty 800m from shore = sub/shark food. Always 200+ spare on any run.
• Solo Large Oil Rig with loot aboard. If you die up top, your RHIB is theirs. Never bring what you can't lose.
• Tugboat with no door locks. Auth at the wheel doesn't stop boarders — code all 3 doors immediately.
• Surfacing a sub in an occupied moonpool. You appear pre-aimed at. Use the periscope first.
• Spraying torpedoes at sharks. 75 scrap a pair — speargun the sharks, save torps for boats and labs.

Sources

1. Corrosion Hour — Rust Rowboat Guide
2. Corrosion Hour — Rust RHIB Guide
3. Corrosion Hour — Rust Tugboat Guide
4. Corrosion Hour — Rust Kayak Guide
5. Corrosion Hour — Rust Submarine Guide
6. Rust Fandom Wiki — RHIB
7. Rust Fandom Wiki — Boats
8. Facepunch — Naval Update News
9. Facepunch — Going Deep (Underwater Labs)
10. Facepunch — Deep Sea Update (Tugboats)
11. Rustafied — The Rust Aquatic (Sharks/Subs)
12. Rustafied — Into the Abyss (Tugboat Mechanics)
13. RustClash Wiki — Tugboat
14. BisectHosting — Rust Submarine Guide
15. RustMods — Underwater Labs 2026 Guide

Want more detail? Monuments Guide · Wipe Day Playbook

Tugboat Sea Base — Advanced Build and Defence

A Tugboat is not just a boat, it is the only fully mobile base in Rust. Played correctly it is the safest home on the server, because raiders cannot dig a tunnel under it, cannot ladder it from a neighbouring base, and cannot find it twice. Played carelessly it is a 3,000 HP loot pinata.

Claiming and locking the right way

The instant you board an unclaimed Tugboat, run to the helm and authorise on the built-in Tool Cupboard. That single action gives you building privilege over the entire deck and hull. Then, in priority order:

1. Code-lock all three doorways — two on the bridge, one below deck. Use sheet metal doors, never wood. An unlocked doorway is an open invitation.
2. Drop a sleeping bag and a locker below deck before you do anything else, so a sink or an ambush does not cost you the spawn.
3. Wall the bridge railing with low external walls or half-height frames. This stops grappling-hook boarders and makes it far harder for a swimmer to climb aboard.
4. Add a second TC inside a sealed room is not possible — the Tugboat helm is the only privilege source, so protect the helm above all else.

What you can build below deck

The hull interior accepts most deployables: boxes, large boxes, lockers, sleeping bags, a furnace, a small refinery, a research table, and even a workbench. You cannot place foundations or upgrade the hull itself — you are decorating a fixed shell. The realistic Tugboat base loadout is a workbench tier 2, a few furnaces, a refinery for converting looted Crude into fuel, and enough boxes for a roaming kit. Treat it as a forward operating base, not a main.

Mobile-base doctrine

• Never anchor in the same spot twice. The whole advantage is unpredictability. Sleep in a different ocean quadrant each night.
• Park in deep ocean, far from shore. Shore-side raiders can rocket you from land for free. In deep water they must commit a boat and a crew, and the sharks become a free perimeter alarm.
• Kill your running lights at night. The Tugboat is visible from a long way off when lit. Run dark.
• Keep the fuel tank topped. A Tugboat caught empty during a raid cannot flee — and fleeing is its single best defence.

Decay and the offline problem

Tugboats decay slowly on open water and will eventually rot if abandoned, but the bigger offline risk is discovery. There is no way to make a Tugboat truly raid-proof while you sleep. The mitigation is concealment plus a respawn point: bag below deck, valuables off the boat or in the least obvious container, and the acceptance that a found Tugboat will be sunk. Many experienced players run the Tugboat as a roaming loadout-and-fuel station and keep their real stash in a hidden land base.

Torpedo Combat — The Numbers Behind Submarine Warfare

The submarine is a weapons platform, and torpedoes are its only gun. Knowing the exact math turns a 200-scrap toy into a serious tool.

Torpedoes are slow-moving projectiles. Against a stationary target — a parked Tugboat, a boat tied to a monument — they are reliable. Against a moving target you must aim well ahead of the bow. They also only travel underwater; you cannot torpedo something that sits high out of the water. The classic submarine raid is to surface just enough to see the waterline of the target, fire, dive, reposition, repeat. The Duo Sub's periscope passenger makes this dramatically easier because the driver never has to expose the hull to line up a shot.

Torpedo applications worth knowing: sinking an enemy Tugboat when you cannot get C4 to it; harassing the Cargo Ship from below the waterline while a boarding crew fights topside; and denying an enemy their Rowboat or RHIB during an Oil Rig contest.

Submarine Depth and Pressure — Diving Without Dying

Depth is the submarine's defence and its danger. The pressure model is precise and unforgiving:

Practical diving rules: keep cruising depth around 30-45m, which clears the seabed in most areas and stays clear of the pressure band. Watch the hull HP bar constantly when you push deeper. The submarine is also slower underwater than on the surface — for long transits, surface-cruise and only dive when you need to approach unseen or pass under a contested zone.

Oxygen is a separate clock from hull HP. The cockpit holds a finite air supply; the meter drains while submerged and refills when you surface. A sub that runs out of air starts drowning the driver even though the hull is fine. On long lab raids, surface periodically inside the moonpool to recharge both air and your situational awareness.

Boat Raid Economics — Cheapest Way to Sink a Target

When the target is a boat — usually a Tugboat — pick the cheapest tool that works:

The lesson: torpedoes are the budget Tugboat killer. If you own a sub, you never need to spend sulfur to sink a boat — you spend scrap on torpedoes, which solos and small teams generate easily. C4 is reserved for when you need the target down in seconds before the owner can flee or counter-board.

Deep-Water Navigation and Survival

• Hug nothing. The map edge has invisible kill boundaries and despawn zones — never park or sleep a boat right at the world border.
• Read the shark spawns. Sharks cluster around dive sites, lab exteriors, and deep treasure spots. A sudden shark means you are near something worth diving for — or near another player who is.
• Boats are shark-proof on the surface. Sharks only attack swimmers. If you are in the hull or on the deck you are safe; the moment you enter the water to reach a moonpool you are on the menu.
• Carry a speargun on any deep-water trip. It is a cheap, reliable shark answer and doubles as silent self-defence against another diver.
• Mind the fuel clock. Open ocean offers no refuel. Always carry double the Low Grade Fuel you think the round trip needs — a stranded boat in deep water is a dead boat.