Could it be that you missed a message about the ship being destroyed by freak waves, rocks or something else? ADOM II has a variety of dangers built in that can destroy your ship (depends on your sailing skill).

Nope, no message. The message list had "you board the small boat" followed by "you are hungry" and then "the water is too deep - you drown".

And you also pressed '>' to enter the raft? Sorry for asking these stupid questions but so far I am totally unable to reproduce the problem :-)

I get the same bug. You only get this bug if you step onto a raft (or other boat?) and then walk onto an ocean tile WITHOUT boarding the raft by pressing ">".

When you do that, the raft stays put but you don't get any swimming/drowning messages, until you get hungry at which point you start to drown normally.

i.e., step onto a raft, step onto an ocean tile, you can walk around on water until you get hungry(er) at which point you start drowning.

Fixed for ADOM II 0.2.8. Please send your real name to creator(at)ancientdomainsofmystery.com for it to be included in the credits. (If you were already asked to do so you can ignore this message. Please include a reference to the bug or RFE you are credited for.)