When you exit a boat it disappears or rushes at you from behind

This is boat rubber banding. Basically it's trying to go back to the position where the player entered the boat. If you ride for long enough (longer than your sim distance) then it will rubber band into unloaded chunks, and won't return to you. Loading the boat will cause it to shoot to the location where the player exited.

Having a lower render distance may help you notice this rubber banding into unloaded chunks.

Affects 1.18.0.25

Affects 1.18.10.20 beta

Affects 1.18.10.21 beta

I can confirm that most of the time the reported work around where you disembark whilst looking down in only 1 blocks worth of water usually means the boat stays.

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Not a fix but a workaround which helps me at the moment: You can shoot the invisible boat with a sufficiently strong bow and it will drop. You only have to aim to the place where you exited the boat.

My boat disappeared but was still in its spot. I figured it out when I had a panda in my boat. It was still making noises I just couldn’t see it or the boat. Another thing was I dismounted beside a drowned and it disappeared while still attacking me. This was on Xbox One, though with split screen. 

Another workaround, for people playing on worlds with cheats/commands enabled.

Make sure you have one and only one boat (visible or not, where it is supposed to be) at a distance of 20 blocks:

/ride @s start_riding @e[type=boat,r=20]

And, to do it for another player:

/execute Player_Name ride Player_Name start_riding @e[type=boat,r=20]

Further to this issue, I have consistently been able to not have my boat disappear when surrounded by sand on three sides: front, one side, bottom.  Otherwise, my boat disappears.  This happens on both single player and realms.

@unknown: That doesn't seem reliable as a general workaround. It didn't work for me, for example. Are you sure it's not just that you got out of the boat within simulation distance of getting into it? When you do that, the boat doesn't disappear.

I have had a very similar issue. Friend and I are playing on Bedrock [PC]. We get in the boat together and ride a distance. The other player leaves the boat and they can no longer see me or the boat I am still in. When I exit the boat, the other player can see me but still cannot see the boat. I can see the boat so I can break it and place it back down; only then can the other player see the boat again. While the boat is invisible, it also seems as though when the other player attempts to hit it, it goes unaffected. The boat and other player turning invisible seems to affect the person that was rowing the boat.

Playing on xbox here (playing on our LAN on 2 xbox ones)- our boats keep dissapearing. Sometimes when we've just gotten out, but twice it has happened while we're in them - both times in shallow water (1-2 blocks deep), and another time while we had stuck a sheep we found on the ocean (WATER SHEEP!) into one and left it in a cobblestone box (trying to prevent despawn until we could kill the mobs and build a fence - we went to move it and luckily the sheep was still there, but the boat was gone.  

The boat doesn't just disappear after long distances but the chance is greater. If there is another player in the world they are still able to see the boat and use it. When they use it they freeze standing above the water and will teleport to wherever they get out. It may or may not disappear for them. If they break the boat it will reappear for you once it is place again. 

Another workaround, that seems to work most of the time is:

Make sure you disembark in no more than 1 block deep of water and look directly down while exiting. 

Doesn't always work, but most of the time 

i have found that you cannot put a block into where the invisible boat is.  it will reappear after a couple of days but now i read a comment that leave for 70 blocks and come back and the boat is there.  i have gotten into the habit if carrying a spare boat with me to get back home instead of creating a new boat.

Affects 1.18.10.24 Beta

Experienced this on the most recent PS4 version. Luckily, I was split screen with someone. For whatever reason, when we left our boats, we could always see the other one, but not always ours (player one and player two each leave their own boat. Player one can see player two’s boat, but not player one’s. Then vice versa for player two). We then just broke and replaced the boats for the other person (because using a boat they couldn’t see made me invisible to them too and vice versa). Oddly, there were two (I think) of several bugged instances where we both nudged and pushed the invisible boat a bit and it re-materialized. I’m unsure exactly what we did to pull that off.

PC Bedrock, and PS4, playing on a Realms server, 1.18.2.

Boat is still present for some of the game's calculations - for example, Frostwalker enchantment does not make ice where the boat should be. Blocks cannot be placed in that spot, and falling blocks are "dropped" instead of falling through the space into water below. However, boat has no collision for the active player that was riding it previously. Trying to hit the boat usually acts like it's not there, though I was once able to get the "hit" sound about a block higher than I expected, though it never broke. Usually, another player can see the boat. If that player gets into the boat, they disappear also (as seen by the first rider), or appear to be standing where they were before entering the boat. Resets by the 2nd rider moving far away enough to unload visuals, and then the 1st player following and moving back in range.

1.18.2 Bedrock server on multiple platforms- boats have started randomly appearing in loaded chunks, regardless of being no where near where a boat disappeared from. We all have elytra and no one has used a boat in weeks, but they have started popping up all over the server for people who had boats disappear.

PC, Nintendo Switch, Android: Bedrock Realms server 1.18.2.

I noticed today that boat rubberbanding did not happen to me in a nether highway, even though I traveled 500 blocks. My nether highway is two blocks wide and three blocks tall with a floor of ice. Rubberbanding always happens to me in the overworld when traveling past my render distance.

I don't know if being in the Nether, being surrounded by blocks, or if being on ice causes boats to behave differently, but I will do some testing and let you know what I find. 

I rode a boat 2000+ blocks over the ocean. When I was getting closer to my base I went over an Ocean Monument and got mining fatigue. As I was approaching land, it was getting dark so before exiting the boat I placed down my bed and exited my boat by sleeping in my bed. The boat was there when I woke up. It had not disappeared. I have exited boats by sleeping in beds many times before and the boat always disappears. I'm assuming it did not disappear this time because I had mining fatigue?

This is a real killer in our Bedrock Realm since upgrading to 1.18. I am exploring a river system and ocean with my sons & every time we exit a boat, the boat disappears - but only for the person who exits it. So long as someone else is nearby, they can still see the boat and hack it so it drops. Then the owner can pick it up. Otherwise can Save and Quit, then when logging back in can see the boat. 

Fun fact - if your companion hops into your invisible boat, they turn invisible too. (To you)

This bug is fixed in the latest beta version, and the fix will be included in a future update when that is ready for full release (no specific date can be given). We will leave this ticket open as a point of reference until the fix has been fully released.