I played a lot of Ultima VII and really loved it but got increasingly frustrated with one weird bug: every time I went to sleep (as in "I", not I), the screen went blank and there was no way of going forward.
In the end, after hitting a bunch of roadblocks, I found a way of robbing the bank, bought a ship and started exploring the world. Didn't even know what I was supposed to to at that point, but boy, was it fun.
I figured out that although the big ships had cannons, you had to leave them at the shore. The small rowboats would fit in an inventory slot - inventory was based on slots and weight, so a strong character could carry it. So my group of adventurers walked around in caves and forests with a rowboat in my backpack, and water obstacles were never a problem again.
In the end, after hitting a bunch of roadblocks, I found a way of robbing the bank, bought a ship and started exploring the world. Didn't even know what I was supposed to to at that point, but boy, was it fun.