Whilst you have a good point, if you've never been on any of the boats, you don't have any real ideas who any of the quest items could go to.
Which is more of what I was getting at.
I liked this trading sequence.
It didn't outright tell you where you needed to go, and to continue on in it you would of had to of gone off the linear track to meet the people that each item in the sequence vaguely hinted.