Is there a way to abuse Sinking?

[SangoProduction]

A ship that is reduced to 0 or fewer hit points gains the sinking condition. A sinking ship cannot move or attack, and it sinks completely 10 rounds after it gains the sinking condition. Each additional hit on a sinking ship that deals more than 25 points of damage reduces the remaining time for it to sink by 1 round. A ship that sinks completely drops to the bottom of the body of water and is considered destroyed. A destroyed ship cannot be repaired—it is so significantly damaged it cannot even be used for scrap material. Magic (such as make whole) can repair a sinking ship if the ship’s hit points are raised above 0, at which point the ship loses the sinking condition. Generally, non-magical repairs take too long to save a ship from sinking once it begins to go down.

So, it goes from just above the water to instantly at the bottom of the body of water. Obviously, for people with swim speed/water breathing, this makes for expedient travel to under water cities. Possibly even cheap travel if you are only sacrificing a raft to do this.

But anything else?

[Malphegor]

Maybe a super fast descending elevator in a building? You have a submarine in a pillar of water, damage it enough so it plummets, then use spells or pulleys to drag it back up?

[Psyren]

"A ship that sinks completely drops to the bottom of the body of water and is considered destroyed."

You're assuming that all of this happens in an instant at the end of the 10th round of sinking, but I'm not seeing why that has to be the only reading of this line. Yeah it'll end up on the bottom, just like a dead character's soul ends up in the afterlife, but the time between A and B seems like it can be pretty abstract to my reading.

[zlefin]

ships sink even if they're made of buoyant materials? maybe you could do something with that.

I wonder if you could use the "Destroyed" clause to damage/destroy things which are otherwise nigh-indestructible.

[Gallowglass]

instant FTL transport in the plane of water where there is no bottom.

[Biggus]

"A ship that sinks completely drops to the bottom of the body of water and is considered destroyed."

You're assuming that all of this happens in an instant at the end of the 10th round of sinking, but I'm not seeing why that has to be the only reading of this line. Yeah it'll end up on the bottom, just like a dead character's soul ends up in the afterlife, but the time between A and B seems like it can be pretty abstract to my reading.

Yeah, I'm struggling to see where it says or even implies that it reaches the bottom instantly.

[emulord]

Even if it isn't instant, its guaranteed to get there.
Easy way to move from the Plane of Water to the plane of Earth?
Easy way to get to the bottom of a body of water?

Maybe combo this with a Diving Bell to get past the maximum depth. https://www.realmshelps.net/stores/ships.shtml
It doesn't explicitly break the air pocket inside a diving bell to have it be destroyed, just prevent it from being raised to the surface again. Flavor it as cutting the cables :)

[Psyren]

Even if it isn't instant, its guaranteed to get there.
Easy way to move from the Plane of Water to the plane of Earth?
Easy way to get to the bottom of a body of water?

Swimming down or strapping weights to yourself are guaranteed too, still not seeing what makes this special (or "easy" for that matter).

[Telonius]

ships sink even if they're made of buoyant materials? maybe you could do something with that.

I wonder if you could use the "Destroyed" clause to damage/destroy things which are otherwise nigh-indestructible.

This was my thought as well. Maybe for something that keeps coming back to life, it could be a way to permanently kill it? Somehow transfer the spirit into the ship, then sink it.

[Quentinas]

Even if it isn't instant, its guaranteed to get there.
Easy way to move from the Plane of Water to the plane of Earth?

Why it should be an easy way to go from plane of earth to plane of water? There wasn't a place where these two planes mixed themselves?

[TerrickTerran]

Paraelemental Plane of Ooze in 2nd edition anyways.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Reminds me of a technicality with the tripping rules.

Tripping imposes the "prone" condition, which unequivocally states "you are on the ground". There's an exception for flying creatures... but no such exception for swimming ones, so if you trip a swimming character, they either instantly plummet to the bottom of the ocean or rocket towards the nearest source of "ground".

Either way is absolutely hilarious.