OSRS Sailing bounty tasks guide 2026: seabird contracts, reward bags and the best boards

How Sailing bounty tasks work

Bounty tasks are the combat side of Sailing's port-task system. From level 30 Sailing (the level cannot be boosted above the requirement), you can inspect a notice board at any port: each board always has one bounty task available, and every bounty monster is guaranteed to appear on at least one board somewhere.

The loop is simple: select the task, sail to the spot where the monster roams, kill it until the required body parts drop (a unique jingle plays when a part drops), then return to any port master — not the same one — and cash in. Rewards are Sailing XP plus a coin bag or reward bag whose size scales with the task's XP.

You hold 3 task slots at level 30, 4 at level 56 and 5 at level 84, shared with courier tasks. Tasks can be cancelled from the captain's log, the notice board or a port master, and any parts you have already collected stay with you and count toward the next task of the same type — so abandoning a bad contract costs little.

Long-term note: two bounty tasks for the same monster can be active at once (for its two different drops), but the second task's parts only start dropping once the first is complete.

Reward bags and the shark paint

The payout is Sailing XP for the task itself plus a port coin bag or port reward bag sized to the base XP: Tiny (3,465 XP), Small (8,800 XP), Medium (11,825–14,575 XP), Large (19,910–30,965 XP) and Huge (40,370–47,080 XP). The bag contents reflect the difficulty tier, and the XP reward makes bounty tasks one of the more efficient ways to push Sailing levels once you can hold several active slots.

Every bounty completion also rolls a rare cosmetic: shark paint at 1/36 chance, the maritime-community favourite drop that keeps high-level players coming back to the notice board even after 99.

There is a hidden perk while a bounty task is active: certain unique sea-monster drops (bottled storm, broken dragon hook) drop twice as commonly until the task's required item count is met for the first time — so low-requirement tasks double as farming missions for those uniques. Note that bounty tasks reward no PvP-related points; this is the Sailing port-task system, unrelated to the Bounty Hunter minigame.

The seabird contracts: Tern, Osprey, Frigatebird, Albatross

The four bird contracts work exactly like the rest: you kill the birds at sea from your ship (they are treated as sea monsters, not scenery — there is no sighting minigame). Each has two possible part drops, a beak version and a feather version, with different board locations and requirements per board.

Tern is the gentlest entry point: beak tasks appear from level 30 at The Pandemonium, Civitas illa Fortis and Port Roberts, with feather tasks at Brimhaven, Catherby, Land's End, Musa Point, Port Piscarilius and Port Sarim, and higher-tier feather drops from level 46–70 boards (Aldarin, Void Knights' Outpost, Deepfin Point, Prifddinas). Beak tasks need 5 beaks at 1/10; feather tasks need 15–30 feathers at 1/2 to 1/3.

Osprey shares Tern's feather pool at several of the same low-level boards (Port Sarim and Corsair Cove also list its beaks) but spreads feathers across more high-level boards — Void Knights' Outpost at level 50 wants 25, Deepfin Point at 67 and Prifddinas at 70 want 20–30. Frigatebird starts at level 45–46 with beaks on the Aldarin, Catherby, Civitas illa Fortis, The Pandemonium and The Summer Shore boards, and adds feather contracts from 50–52 (Void Knights' Outpost, Red Rock) up to a level 67 feather at Deepfin Point.

Albatross is the boss bird: beaks only appear from level 50 boards (Catherby, Port Khazard, Port Roberts, Ruins of Unkah, The Summer Shore) with a level 76 variant on Lunar Isle, and feather contracts from level 62 (Rellekka), 65 (Etceteria) and a level 50 Brimhaven variant. Despite the higher requirements, albatross tasks still pay the standard reward tier for their level band, so they are efficiency picks for high-level sailors.

Handling the parts: inventory, cargo and teleports

Bounty parts have a strict storage rule: they cannot be banked, but they stack (feathers and beaks both stack), so a full inventory is reachable only with careful bag management while a task is active.

You can store parts in your ship's cargo hold, but that choice matters: parts left in the cargo hold are lost if your ship is recovered or teleported away, while parts in your inventory travel safely with a teleport. The safe pattern is to keep collected parts on your person and only use the cargo hold as temporary overflow near a port.

This is also why the 'return to any port master' loop is so smooth — with parts stacking in the inventory you can chain several tasks before banking the bag rewards, and the double-drop window makes chaining worthwhile when hunting bottled storm or broken dragon hook.

The best boards to work from

For low and mid levels, The Pandemonium and Catherby are the standout hubs: Catherby covers tern feathers, frigatebird beaks and albatross beaks, while The Pandemonium covers tern beaks, osprey beaks, frigatebird beaks and more — both gave you sea access from the same dock you use to fish.

Port Sarim and Brimhaven are good complementary starts for the simplest tern/osprey feathers right at level 30 if you want to learn the loop near civilisation, while Civitas illa Fortis and Aldarin stretch into the mid-level feather range.

Late-game, Void Knights' Outpost, Deepfin Point and Prifddinas carry the biggest feather counts (25–30), and Lunar Isle hosts the lone level 76 albatross beak task — the ceiling of the bird system. Whatever your level, the golden rule stays the same: kill, collect, cash in, and keep those parts on you.