Mrbarbecque

Its gone

Ship mechanics are much better to their previous game, you must not play alot of games to see that they do the same thing, battlefield, call of duty, borderlands, and any sports game to touch the tip of the ice burg. Its pretty good as an mmo and can't wait to see the game at full launch.

If they wipe they wipe. They ended up making legacy servers for ark before completely phasing them out. Wouldn't be surprised if they do one last wipe before game launch. Nothing is a set in stone, I.E. x2 weekends, so a wipe may or may not happen by the time the game comes out of early access. The entire point of early access is to iron out any bugs, smooth out gameplay, and make it ready for launch.

You can back your ship into a shipyard or pull it in then back out

I have seen a bunch around the island I was treasure hunting at. It is possible the litter patrol has cleaned the beaches before you got there.