How to Build a Ship in Minecraft

Building a ship in minecraft can be one of the most difficult things to build. Their rounded shapes are very difficult to recreate with large blocks, without making it look weird.

I’m by no means a ship building expert and I don’t claim this guide is the best way to build a ship, but hopefully it’ll help people, especially beginners, design and create their own ships.

Just a note, the difference between a ship and a boat is that a boat is smaller. You could say a boat fits into a ship. Though the difference doesn’t really matter, as most people use both terms for the same thing anyway.

Planning

Build a ship is best done by planning your design first. Think of a general shape and size of the ship you want and try to find some reference pictures to work from, whether it’s a minecraft version or a photograph of a real ship.

When building a ship, you can often divide the parts you want to build into 4 separate sections. The bow (front), stern (back), the remainder of the hull (body of the ship) and all the other details, like masts, flags, etc.

The front and back of the ship are often the most difficult parts to build, as they’re round and generally odd looking when translated into minecraft builds.

I usually either start with the front or with the middle, though building the entire framework first will also work. This tutorial will cover each step individually, so you can do them in any order you like. However, the first thing you always have to do is determine the size of your ship, as it’ll determine how wide the bottom will be, which will always be the place we start at.

Bow (front)

The front of the ship is a bit tricky, as it’s both round and pointy. It’s often best to first create the general shape and then take out blocks to make it look more aqua dynamic and overall better looking. Start out by first finding or creating the middle of your ship. This will be the lowest point and will be used as reference points from which we build up the remainder of the front.

Start by creating a long row of blocks as the middle of the ship. Then slowly build your way up to your desired height. Start to increase the height very slowly, only about 1 block every 3-5 blocks. Slowly increase this until you’re about half way up. Now increase the height faster, about 1 block every 1 or 2 blocks until you’ve reached your desired height.

Once you’ve reached the desired height, it’s time to start building from this point towards the sides. Begin on 1 side and slowly work your way towards the desired width of the boat, but make sure you don’t make it too wide or not wide enough. You generally want to work your way to about 8-11 blocks away from the middle line of your ship, though again, it depends on the size and type of ship you’re building.

Start out by increasing the width by about a block every 2 blocks you place. Then increase the width every 3 blocks you place. Keep making the intervals at which you increase the width longer and longer untill you’ve reached the desired width. Now copy this on the other side. If you’re having difficulties to recreate it, either fly over your ship and try to mirror the image, or take a screenshot and mirror it with an image editor.

It’s very difficult to explain the exact steps you need to take to make the front look good from this point, as it’s generally just a matter of experimenting and it also depends a lot on the type of ship you’re building. Try to make the front look sharper by removing and adding blocks, play around with it until it looks good. Note that if the front is made entirely out of the same color wood (or same block), it will rarely look good enough on it’s own, so make a few layers out of a different color or a different block. It’ll look better right away.

If you’re really having troubles, try copying an existing minecraft boat to get a feel of it. Count the number of blocks they’ve placed on each layer and then change it to your own liking.

Stern (back)

I find the stern a little easier to start, but it’s often a little tricky to get it to look right, especially if you make it higher to create a captain’s cabbin.

I always start by creating a anchor-like shape the edge of the middle, at the height of the deck. This is often a great way to start, though higher ships might require you to start this lower.

After this I first connect the the bottom of the ship to the edge of the anchor-like shape by simply placing blocks and making the length 1 block smaller every time I go down 1 block. Note that we need to leave some space for a room, like the captain’s cabin, so I’ve already placed some glass blocks to mark this space.

Once you’ve finished this, the general shape looks decent, but often quite odd. I then begin to trim the overall shape down, by removing and adding blocks to make it look longer and more aqua dynamic. I also add windows on the upper part, which will usually be a bedroom or office of the captain.

Once I’ve finished this it’s time to build upwards. I tend to simply add layers to the top layer, without increasing or decreasing the width, this will look quite good, but improvements can be made. After I’ve added enough layers for a second floor, I begin trimming it all down again. I tend to remove some corners and replace them with fences, this makes it all look less flat and plain, without losing the overall shape.

The top part can also stick out a little on all sides, which will also help making it look less flat and plain. This is something I usually do after I’ve built up the layers, simply by adding another layer against the sides.

This is also usually the part where I add the windows to both the captain’s cabin and other rooms in the back, as windows can look quite odd, so they often need some extra attention.

I often also add the rudder and possibly a pole with a flag, as I might forget to add them later (like I did in the picture).

Hull (body)

The hull is fairly easy, especially if you’ve already created either the stern or bow. You simply extend the blocks at the edges of those parts until you’ve reached the desired length.

However, if you’re starting with the hull, building it will still be quite easy. You start by creating the middle, which is just a long line of blocks.

Then determine how wide you want your ship to be and slowly work your way towards that height and width. Don’t increase the height too fast, or it’ll look very weird. It may take some practice and experimenting to get the right size, so don’t create the whole hull right away, instead, create a smaller 5 block long part and check if that part looks good, if it doesn’t, alter it and check again.

Details

Once you’ve completed the entire body of the ship it’s time to add details. This will once again depends on the type of ship you’re making, a pirate ship will usually have sails, while a steam punk style ship might have a hot air balloon with huge propellers.

One detail that will look good on pretty much all ships is a few layers in a different block. A ship made entirely out of wooden planks looks quite plain, so replace a few layers with logs or differently colored planks.

You may also want to add fences on the edges, both to prevent people from falling off and as a way to make them ship look better. Don’t forget to leave some openings to allow people to go on and off board.

Sails

Sails are quite difficult to make, so I often create the in their folded positions, as if the ship is laying at anchor. This will work best when the ship is in a harbor, where it’s a lot more realistic for a ship to have its sails folded.

However, if you do want to hoist the sails, creating a diagonal spreader, which are the branches on a mast, often look better, as they allow you to create better looking sails. Straight spreaders can also be used, but the sails will often look a bit odd and square, especially on smaller ships.

  

Creating a sail requires some practice and trial and error, it can take a while to make it looks good and you often have to adjust the width and length of the mast and spreaders. However, you generally create circular shapes, which start and end at spreaders, though they could also be attached to ropes on deck, which could be mimicked with fence posts.

A trick I use to create sails is to open paint and first draw the spreader, make sure each block you’ve used on your boat’s spreader is resembled by 1 pixel.

After this I use the circle tool to create a circular shape from 1 side of the spreader to the other. This often gives me a great horizontal outline of the sails I want. I then do the same by drawing the mast, but again, remember the 1 pixel to 1 block ratio. After the mast is drawn I use the circle tool again to create another circular shape which marks the outline of the sail vertically. Once both shapes have been drawn, I only have to recreate it on my minecraft boat, though it often requires some more tweaking.

I usually find a few pictures of real life examples and try to copy those as close as possible. I then make any needed alterations to make it look better with the overall design of the ship.

If you’re really struggling, try downloading some existing minecraft ships and take a closer look to the way those people have built that ship.

Viking Building Style in Minecraft

The viking building style allows for some very dramatic looking villages, especially when they’re built on mountains or other high places in snow biomes.

The most stereotypical part about viking houses are the roofs. They’re tall, slightly curved and usually have some form of decoration at the ends of the top. The houses themselves are often made out of wood and tend to look quite dark and a little depressing. This dark exterior contrasts the interior of the houses, which are often quite cozy and mainly designed to be practical.

Viking ships are also very distinct looking, with the curved ends and a red and white sail. I’ve built two different ships for this guide, a large one, which I use as trading and battle ships, and a smaller ship, which I use as either fishing boats or viking funeral services (they burn the dead on small sail boats). Note that I cover the large ship in more detail in a separate guide, which you can find here.

Viking houses

As you can see in the image below, I’ve built the roofs of the normal viking houses as quite steep, pointed roofs. I used normal planks partially because minecraft doesn’t have dark wooden slabs and stairs yet, but mainly because these wooden plank roofs allow us to place snow on it (or let it fall on top), which makes it look a lot better.

The reason we need slabs and stairs is the decoration pieces on the roof itself. I mainly used stairs (and upside down stairs) to create them and they look great. The slabs are used to make the roof curve slightly inwards at the top, which doesn’t look very good if you use stairs or normal blocks.

The decoration piece is made with an upside down stairs at the edge of the roof, which has a slab on top of it and 2 upside down stairs on the sides of that slab. Slabs are also added at the back side (roof side) to make it flow gradually into the curved roof.

Unlike most of my other guides I’ve also decorated the inside of the houses, which turned out quite well. Instead of 2 separate floors, I’ve chosen for half an upper floor, which makes it part of the ground floor and the whole house. This also allowed me to add a fire with a cauldron as a center piece of the house, which is where the vikings will sit for warmth and food. Besides this fire I’ve also built a kitchen, which looks quite cozy under the top floor.

The top floor is used as a sleeping area, which is heated by the warmth of the fire (and kitchen) on the bottom floor. I found this works great, as it makes the house look very cozy and warm, which contrasts perfectly with the cold winter landscape outside.

Viking townhall

The townhall is the biggest building in the village and built on the highest part of the island, which is also roughly the middle of the island. I’ve built the townhall is a place where all the vikings will meet, celebrate and enjoy some food and drinks.

The town hall has 2 large rows of tables, which is where the common viking will sit with their family and friends. The large table at the end of this row is used by the viking heroes, only (the best) warriors and fighters will sit here. The smaller table at the end is for the chief and his wife will sit, which is also why this part of the building is elevated to allow them to overlook the whole building.

At the entrance and in the 2 side sections of the building are some cauldrons on a fire, which is where all the food of for the vikings is cooked. I’ve played around with different blocks, as I wanted something different than just cauldrons on the fire, but the only block that came close to looking good was netherrack, which looks a little like meat, but not enough. Pumpkins and melons just looked weird.

I’ve only placed windows above the entrance and behind the viking chief’s table. This lets in just enough daylight, without making everything look to open and bright. I wanted to make everything look warm and cozy, just like the houses, which adds to the contrast between the warm fires inside and the cold, snowy landscapes outside. The fires from the cauldrons provide some decent lighting, but not enough to light the whole town hall, so I’ve added a few torches and a chandelier to light up the roof.

The roof of the town hall is a bit different from the houses, but shouldn’t be too difficult to build. The decoration piece will be the hardest, but it’s simply a slightly bigger version of the one who got on the houses. Like the house piece, this piece has 2 upside down stairs attached to the side of a slab, which is placed on top of another upside down stairs placed against the edge of the roof. A normal stairs block is placed under it, which makes it stand out more and that’s exactly what we want from out main building. The back of the declaration piece is made with a stairs block first and then a slab.

The roof is also curved more, as we have more space to work with. I go down half a block about every 2-3 blocks, whichever looks better. If you copy my roof, the exact measurements after the stairs and slab of the decoration piece are: 2 blocks, 2 slabs, 3 blocks, 4 slabs and then you build up towards the middle again in with 3 blocks, 2 slabs and then 2 blocks.

The roofs of the side parts are almost the same as the roofs of our normal houses, with the exception that they start with just a 1 block increase in height, instead of 2. This means the roofs will overlap where they meet each other, which looks a lot better.

Other buildings

Of course, a village isn’t very good if you only have a town hall and the same looking houses. A town needs farms, windmills, blacksmiths and many other job specific houses. Most of these buildings will look similar to the normal houses, but just bigger or with side sections, similar to our townhall. But blacksmiths, windmills, animal barns and other buildings will look a little different.

A blacksmith needs to have either a chimney or an outdoor furnace to make sure the heat can go out. I decided to use both, though the outdoor furnace looks best in my opinion. Like most buildings, the blacksmith has the signature roof, but the windows are a little different and the bottom half of the building is made out of stone. You can read how to build the complete blacksmith in our blacksmith building guide.

My viking village has been built with darker looking blocks, so our windmill also has to look darker than the one in our windmill building guide, it also needs to be a bit bigger to fit in with the large viking houses. The general shape is still the same, but I’ve expanded the width and height to make sure the overal shape doesn’t look odd. The windmill is not in use in the cold winter months, so I’ve added ice formations to make the village look even colder.

Viking boat

The small boat is fairly easy to make, but this scale doesn’t allow us to add many details. One main characteristic of viking ships is the curved ends, which I’ve tried to recreate with upside down stairs.

The stern and bow (back and front) of the ship are the same, except for the decoration piece. I would normally use the same piece on both sides, but both pieces work just as good together, so you’ll have to decide for yourself which one you like best.

The hull of the boat can be seen in the image above, you simply extend it to as long as you like. The sail is made in the same way I make the large sails, which is part experimenting and part using a program like Paint to draw out some general shapes of sails and see which one looks best.

Viking ship

Building a large viking ship allows us to add more details, which is perfect for the curved decoration pieces at each end. For this ship I’ve chosen to use the same piece on each side, which works quite well.

As with our smaller viking boat, this viking ship is pretty much symmetrical, so both the stern and bow are the same. The only thing that’ll make one side look like the front is our sail, which is the same sail as the one I used in our normal ship tutorial.

Fairy Building Style in Minecraft

The fairy building style will need to be taken lightly, as some may view this style as elven style, woodland style or perhap some other form of fantasy style, but for the purpose of this guide we’ll call it fairy style.

When I started designing a new area, I knew that I wanted a fantasy style forest, but I didn’t want it to be like many other builds, which usually involve elf-like buildings like we’re used to seeing in The Lord of the Rings and other movies. I decided to go for smaller creations, as this meant I could build tiny houses, secret passages, use lighting effects and other whimsical effects.

However, I did want the cliche grand tree in the middle, simply because it not only looks impressive, especially when standing on the ground, it also acts as the main place for all my houses and other builings.

The trees

Trees make up most of the builds, though they mostly serve as good looking landscape pieces, but they’re an important part of this building style. I build my trees with Voxel Sniper, which is highly recommended for when you want to create huge trees, but some of my smaller trees are made by hand.

One thing you may want to consider is using weird shaped trees to make everything feel more magical and different. While a normal, straight forest looks great, we want a more fantasy-style type of forest for our fairies. Try floating trees, weirdly curved trees, trees growing from trees, trees growing and merging as one, the posibilites are endless.

A final note, I highly recommend using an anti leaf decay mod or server plugin to make the trees and it’s pretty much a requirement if you use Voxel Sniper or world edit. Huge trees will cause huge amounts of lag (and will crash your game) if you don’t turn leaf decay off. I personally use world guard, which I’ve got setup on a private, local host server.

Fairy houses

My fairy houses are quite simplistic, though I think they work great. I used leaves to create a birdnest-like structure, small enough to be considered as a fairy house, but big enough for some basic furniture. The leaves will blend the house in with the highest leaves in the whole area, in this case the cornucopia of the large tree. By adding some glowstone at the top, in between the leaves of the house, a dim light effect is added at night, which looks great in large numbers.

I’ve also added small overhanging edge outside the entrances, this is mostly used for real players, as flying through a 2 block high gap can often be a pain. Simply landing on this edge and walking in makes this a lot easier.

I didn’t add any windows, I find this creates a more cosy feel to the inside of the house and because I play with graphics on fancy, light will shine through the leaves, creating a neat effect. If you have your graphics settings set to fast, you may want to consider using a small window or 2 if it looks too dark inside.

Statues, gardens and more

No fantasy forest is finished without at least 1 magical gathering place. While I plan to create many more, I currently have a neat, excluded place for people to relax. A small, circular hill creates a neat barrier and 2 intertwining trees growing above the small pond make that pond look a little more magical.

I’ve used 2 tree-like twin statues as an entrance and build them to make them look like they’re using powers to hold up a light crystal, which could be magical in itself. These types of statues will be found throughout the forest, each with their own names, meanings and uses.

These statues also give a more stereotypical relation to nature, especially as a type of worship or faith system. While I don’t aim to create a strong belief system, I find that creating some form of magical power, whether it’s a higher power or not, adds to the overal feel and perception of the forest as a magical place, perfect for fairies.

Secret passages

A magical forest is nothing without some magic, which I create by using redstone clocks to power different entrances, mechanisms and other fun tricks in the forest. For example, the large waterfall at the twin statues has a secret opening at the bottom, which only opens at night.

A maze could be randomized by constantly changing the walls, either by using a minecart system similar to that used in the rainbow runner mini game or by using normal redstone clocks. A face on a large tree could open its eye every morning or perhaps only at night by using a simple redstone clock and some sticky pistons. A waterfall (and everything else) could be shut off at night to create a clam, silent forest.

Lights could be turned on automatically at night and turned off during the day. The possibilites are (almost) endless, the only limit is your imagination, and perhaps your redstone skills and building space.

How to Tree farming

With 4 different types of logs, leaves and planks, farming trees can be a great way to aquire large amounts of a specific tree block without having to travel to large distances to get to the right biome with the right trees. Farming trees will require you to only travel once, in order to get the right saplings.

A tree farm utilizes the way saplings grow and apply it to as small of an area as possible, in order to increase both the efficiency of land use and increase the harvests over time. By growing trees on a smaller plot of land, and potentially limiting the maximum size of trees, harvesting trees can become a walk in the park.

However, the type of tree you choose will impact the way we farm those trees, as not all the trees grow in the same manner.

You could also use bonemeal, which will instantly grow the saplings into trees, but using bonemeal usually means you don’t really need a farm, as you can simply plant, grow and cut the tree, one after the other. But using bonemeal could greatly speed up the harvesting process if you have a community farm on a server. By simply assigning 1 or 2 people to apply bonemeal and a small group of people to cut the trees down, huge amounts of logs can be aquired in no time.

Type of tree

The type of tree you use will greatly impact the way we can farm them. Oak trees can be used on very compact farms, while pine, birch and jungle trees require more space. Large jungle trees require even more space, though their size is often a hassle when harvesting the tree, so small jungle trees are often prefereed.

Oak tree saplings can be planted next to each other in a full field and they’ll grow if there’s enough space, no matter if leaf blocks are above the sapling. The same is unfortunately not true for pine, birch and jungle trees, which require you to plant them with 2 blocks inbetween the saplings to allow them enough space to grow. This means only oaks can be grown on a very small plot of land, though even the other trees could potentially be grown in the same way, you just have to cut down every tree that grows.

Light

No matter the type of tree you choose, all trees require light to grow, whether it’s underground or on the surface. This means we also need space for torches or other light sources.

When a tree grows, it can knock torches off of the walls, so it’s advised to use glowstone or other light emitting blocks as part of the walls to give the trees enough light. This is usually only required when you create oak farms though, as they’re very compact. Other tree saplings can simply be planted next to torches.

Another advantage glowstone and similar blocks have over torches is that they emit stronger light (15 versus 14 of torches), which means you don’t need to place less glowstone blocks than torches, which means there’s more room for saplings to grow.

However, keep in mind that trees will block light, both with their trunk and the leaves. This means saplings could be blocked from enough light to grow, so make sure you place the light sources quite low in the wall, below the leaves. Depending on the size of your farm, you may also want to place some torches/glowstone/etc in the middle of your farm, at the cost of a few saplings.

Saplings will need a light level of 8 or more to grow, which means they can be planted up to 6 blocks away from torches and up to 7 blocks away from glowstone/pumpkins/etc. However, because trees will block the light, it’s best to make your farm only about 7-11 blocks wide and place light emitting blocks on both sides, preferabbly as one long line to minimize the amount of light that gets blocked by grown trees.

Oak farm

As mentioned, oaks can grow through each other’s leaves, which means saplings can be planted next to each other. This doesn’t mean all saplings will turn into trees, but you do maximize the potential. Any sapling will grow if there’s enough space to grow, which is calculated by the amount of free blocks around the sapling. While wood blocks will obstruct growth, oak leaves don’t.

So theoretically we can simply fill a field with oak saplings and wait for them to grow. While this is true, this doesn’t give us the highest yield over time, as some saplings will not grow due to other trees blocking the light for those saplings. This means we have to alter our field to make sure all the saplings get as much light as possible.

By far the best and easiest method is by simply placing a row of torches, glowstone or other light emitting blocks around the saplings, but 1 block higher than the saplings to make sure the saplings next to the light sources do not block the light. As mentioned, torches are not the best option, as they emit less light and they can be knocked off by growing trees.

By only placing the glowstone blocks 1 block higher than the saplings, trees will still be able to grow. You could also place the glowstone a little higher, which will force the trees on the edges to become at least 3 or more blocks high (without exceeding their growth limit), but this is generally not wanted, as it can be a pain to harvest a large oak tree.

Birch, jungle or pine farm

These 3 tree types grow the same, which means they could be grown together in the same plot, though it’s advised to create seperate farms for each type of tree.

As mentioned, these trees require more space to grow. These trees do consider leaf blocks to be an obstruction, which means they will not grow if a leaf block is in the way. This means saplings have to be placed at least 2 blocks apart from each other, which means your farm could become quite large.

However, it is perfectly fine to grow these trees in the same way we grow oak trees, but you’ll have to make sure to cut down the grown trees quite often. This will increase the land use efficiency, though the block yield will generally be lower than that of oaks, due to the growth restrictions.

Large jungle tree farm

Large jungle trees are a great way to farm huge amounts of logs (up to 2 stacks per tree), but they require a lot of space to grow and an even larger setup is needed to farm these trees efficiently.

Jungle trees are grown by planting 4 saplings in a 2×2 grid on the ground. However, the North-Western most sapling required the other blocks next to it to be empty. So you essentially need a 3×3 grid per tree. Then there’s also the height of these jungle trees. Getting to the top can be quite a hassle.

What I do is build a large frame around the 3×3 grid where I planted the saplings. This frame will have ladders which allow me to climb up to 32 blocks, from which I can then jump to the tree. However, some jungle trees will be relatively small, though never enough to kill you from fall damage, if you have full health of course.

The frame will be a large, 7x7x32 block hollow frame. This allow the jungle tree to grow side branches through the openings and it makes building the frame less time consuming.

I also tend to build at least 4 of these frames, usually in a square. This allows me to grow multiple jungle trees and I won’t have to wait too long for the jungle trees to grow. If you create even more of these frames, waiting will barely be an issue. As trees will usually grow while you’re harvesting one tree.

Height restricting

It’s possible to restrict the height of trees by building a ceiling out of most solid blocks. This ceiling will prevent the saplings from growing as a large tree, but it will also increase the time it takes for all trees to grow, as a sapling that tried to grow as a large tree will have to restart the growing process.

The best ceiling is placed 9 blocks above the ground, which means trees will grow with trunks up to 6 blocks and 2 blocks of leaves on top of that. This will give you trees that can be harvested without having to climb onto higher blocks to get the top logs.

Note that not all blocks will block the tree, wooden planks and wool for example. Any stone block will do fine for the ceiling.

Force minimum height

It’s also possible to force trees to grow to at least a minimum height, which could be useful if you’re looking for bigger trees with more leaves. This is done by creating a few 3×3 rings around the saplings, floating in the air above it. The amount you use will set the minimum height of the tree, though remember that not all trees can grow to the same height. Birch trees are usually smaller than oak and pine trees and only oak trees have an enormous, 1×1 trunk version.

Sugar cane farming

Farming sugar cane is quite easy, though the requirements of sugar cane to grow can make it a bit tricky to increase our land use efficiency. However, there are a few ways with which you can plant as many sugar cane in small plots of land as possible.

There are 2 things we have to keep in mind. The first is that sugar cane can only grow on sand, dirt or grass blocks directly next to a water block, diagonally doesn’t count. Secondly, for sugar cane to grow up to 3 blocks high, no other blocks can be placed up to 4 blocks above the ground. Sugar cane will never grow against the bottom of a block.

Taking this into account there are a few builds you can make. The first one is shown below, which uses as little water blocks as possible, while still creating a square shape. This size is as small as you can go, other sizes will have empty spots.

However, this size is also the only size which you can use to create bigger versions, which will always be a few of these squares next to each other. So a 6×6 square isn’t really possible, but an 8×8 square is, as you just place 4 of the 4×4 squares next to each other.

This method gives us a land use efficiency of 75%, but we can do better than that, a lot better. While the following method isn’t the most harvest friendly method, it is the most land efficient method out there. So if you’re short on space, for example when you’re doing a custom challenge or when you’re using a plugin like Towny, this setup can be perfect to maximize the amount of sugar cane you can farm on small plots of land.

As you can see in the image above, we managed to grow 8 sugar canes on a 3×3 plot by simply dropping water from a higher spot. Note that the water flows under the 4 elevated grass blocks to make sure the lower sugar canes also get some water.

It’s perfectly fine to lower 2 of those blocks opposite to each other, so only 2 blocks are elevated. This allows for easier harvestable rows of sugar cane to be created, as you won’t have to jump every 2 blocks. Instead you can just walk forward and punch everything.

(Semi-)Automatic farm

It’s incredibily easy to create a (semi-)automatic sugar cane farm. All you need is a row of pistons and a row of sugar cane.

As you can see in the image above, pistons are placed 1 block above the base of our sugar cane. Whenever we feel like harvesting our sugar cane, we simply pull the lever and it’ll pop out all the sugar canes above the 1 block base. Most of the sugar canes will drop into the water, which will carry it with the current to whatever collection spot you want.

Some sugar cane will drop onto the sugar cane base, which is perfect because we can then simply push it off again with our pistons. This way all sugar cane will fall into the water, with the exception of perhaps 1 or 2 every now and then who manage to fall on the edge of the grass blocks.

To make your farm fully automatic, all you have to do is add a timer between each input. You could do this with redstone clocks. One effective clock would be a despawn clock, which uses the 5 minute despawn time of blocks with wooden pressure plates, to send a signal once every 5 minutes, by simply adding a signal inverter between the pressure plate and whatever it has to be connected to.