Captain and Ship

here is my dilemma: ive got a hero that is a captain. he has a ship which is also a hero. the ship cant be controlled unless the captain is in it. i want the captain to have an ability (say 'board ship') where he can get in his ship. and the ship to have an ability ('exit ship'?) that drop soff the captain.

right now i have 3 units.
the captain (hero)
the ship (hero)
a copy of the ship (immobile and invincible, not a hero)

the copy is so the ship cant be attacked or move without the captain. i was wondering what is the best way to do what i want to do. i would like both the player and the ship to retain thier items, exp, and abilities.

my first thought was to user the archer and hippogryphs abilities to mount and dismount. but that kills each hero when they switch off. ive decided a triggered spell is probably the way to go. i just wanted to see if anyone can tell me the easiest way to get this done or some other advice. im working on a method of my own right now, ill post it in a few minutes.

thanks in advance!

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EDIT:
i just realized i can make the unit invunerable and paused instead of having a copy of the ship.

so basically my question now is what do i do with the captain when he is "in" the ship? move him to the side of the map and pause/invincible him?

You can Unit - Hide the captain, however then his Icon will reamin in the top left corerner. I suggest Hide the captain, and change his team to an unused team. Then when you exit the ship, just Unit - Move Instantly and Unit - Unhide the captain to the position of the ship.

yeah. what i have right now is i make the captain hidden, invunerable, and paused. i got rid of that ship copy and paused and made that unit invunerable as well. my triggers are basically done except for 2 small things.

1) i used an ability that requires a target for the board ship ability. this way if i decide later a player can own multiple ships boarding with 2 ships nearby isnt a problem. however. this leads to the captain suddenly dissappearing from a bit ways away from the ship. i added a trigger to make him first walk towards the ship before hes hidden. but then i had to add a wait, which if he is already close there will be a pointless wait. is it practical to add a loop in there that waits until the captain is x distance from the ship? or is there a spell that i can base it off of that will make the captain run to the ship before casting starts?

2) the ship exit ability. technically the player could exit his ship in the middle of the ocean. is there anyway (other than regions, im trying to avoid regioning every island on the map) to check if the ship is over deep water?

thanks Tim. and thnaks in advance for any firther help i get.

1) You can check using a region I supose. Just make a region a little larger than the ship, and have that region be placed under the ship ever .10 seconds. That way, you use Wait for Condition instead of Wait for Time Elapsed or whatever it is you are currently using.

2) I supose you could use a dummy unit that has no model that follows cloesly behind the ship. Have the hero be placed inside this dummy instead of the real ship using the Load ability (Like for Zeplins) Then just swap control over to the main ship. This will solve both 1) aas well as 2). That way, when you select "Exit Ship" you have the dummy cast "Unload." If its over water than it will give you a warning saying you cannot unload there. Also that will force the captain to walk all the way up to the ship before entering. That should work I think.