How to create world of warships type boat movement but with buoyancy?

So, I am trying to put together a simple set of movement controls for a boat/ship closely matching how you move in world of warships. The difference is, I want my ships to be able to, when falling from a height, fall into the water and then bob back up to the surface like any buoyant object would do. (Ideally, they would have the freedom to rotate enough to do a nosedive without ever being allowed to flip completely over). Now, I was trying to follow along with the video tutorial on https://wiki.unrealengine.com/Render_Target_Lookup but that uses a heightmap to drive its water height and I can’t really figure out a way to substitute that portion of his blueprint because it is so central to everything. I plan on having all of my water be flat planes at various heights, possibly with waterfalls connecting them(though the waterfalls would be static meshes too) with waves being visual elements only. At this point I am thoroughly confused and I could really use some help, or at least a push in the right direction. Thank you any and everyone for taking the time to read this.

might not be ideal for you but I’ve done something similar with ai and player controlled floating balls that bash each other, the balls have physics enabled and i use force to control them. in the water I’ve placed Physics Volumes containing upward force to make them float realistically.

Thank you for the suggestions, but i’ve progressed in somewhat of my own direction thus far.
I’m a bit closer to what I was hoping for, but I am now having different problems. I decided to make my boat ‘hover’ at water level instead of being buoyant after seeing this tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPVaDndT7tY and at first it seems to be everything I was hoping for. Unfortunately, I now realize that there are a lot of issues that come with having a character based on physics movement. Movement is often unpredictable and erratic in unexpected situations. Moving around by way of add force results in flying, and boats should not fly. Dampening the hover physics also dampens all of the other physics, making my heavy boat float like a feather when falling from high places. Also, anything that knocks into my boat (including other boats) send it shooting away, which is not desirable. And on top of all that, replicating physics over a network is a pain at best. What I need is to replicate the hovering portion of that tutorial without physics simulation getting involved. I imagine that spring arms would be a close bet, since they are so self contained, even with their own dampening controls, but I have no idea how I would rotate my ship based on their input.
If anyone reading this has an idea on how to make this work, I’d be really grateful.

Hay I was wondering how you did the world of warships like movement i’m trying to do the same thing and having quite a bit trouble