A large raft... as opposed to a beautiful sailboat.

[Maethius]

I made a world to have oceans... well, specifically to have a greater probability of larger water bodies. This has created some issues in the 1.20+ updates and the elk (which, as an aside, I think we should be able to name, because my elk has become a welcome friend who I apologize to frequently to injuring him). To sum up the actual play experience and a potential fix:

The elk runs, what? 5 or 6 times faster than the player? 10 times? Feels like it! I have to wait for the world to generate as I rocket across it. BUT the elk seems to swim at 50% to 25% of player speed. In a world with large water bodies, I have, no exaggeration, spent 4 in game HOURS paddling my way toward the Lazeret... and that was the first of THREE large water bodies.

I cheated. I hated to do it, I really did... but I decided to swim across, get accurate coordinates, then return to my elk and teleport us across.  THREE TIMES.

My idea for a solution to this issue was either to build an outboard motor for my elk or... perhaps there should be a raft that is large enough for the player and an elk? A large raft would be very similar to the normal raft with a few exceptions for balance:

1) it would obviously require much more material to build
2) like the sailboat, it is too big to place in your inventory, so it is stuck in whatever water body you build it, and
3) it has the speed limitation of being only as fast as the player can ordinarily swim.

Just a thought I wanted to get an opinion on!