The following is a repost of mine from a thread here, I just want to put it here because I have more input:
—I know this thread is a little old, but figured my experiences may be of assistance. I too have lost two rafts.
1st time: I anchored very close to the shoreline, so close in fact that a hog attacked and hit both the raft and me, I took damage and the raft was knocked back a little bit off of the shore. At that point I saved on the island, I already had a hut established and exited the game for the day. When I next played, I ran around the island getting fibers for the better part of the game day, but when I went to leave my raft was gone. I figured maybe the hog’s hit “retrieved” the anchor and I hadn’t noticed and it floated away.
2nd time: I played for about 6 game days, going between islands collecting and what not. When I made it back to my well established home, I ran right to the sleeping bag and tried to save, but the game crashed. When I loaded it back up, I was back where I had started playing, as if it I hadn’t done anything. A little miffed I just shrugged and went to get on my raft…which was no where to be seen. I’m not sure how the raft would have disappeared after reloading a save file that did have a raft right off shore, that when I started playing I jumped on and went looting islands
Sorry it’s long winded, but I do hope it helps. I thoroughly enjoy the game, even with the bugs here and there. Thank you!—
new information, could be helpful
So last night I made a third ship, sailed to an island that I was planning on recreating via cartography. I saw the suggestion to not save as soon as you get on an island, so I ran around and collected the fibers from baby palms, took about 5 minutes. I then saved, exited to main menu, opened cartography to verify which island I was going to recreate, went back into main menu and continued my game. When I loaded in I found my rat had vanished, for the third time. I wasn’t happy lol.
While at work I was thinking about it and wondered why it happened, and decided it might have been something from cartography. When I got home I made another raft, went to that same island, collected the fibers, saved and exited to main menu, then continued the game. I found my raft right where I left it. Then I exited to the main menu, opened cartography, closed cartography and continued my game, only to find my raft had vanished!
I hope this information helps y’all resolve the issue. Thank you for your continued effort to improve the game