Naww, atleast from personal experience you simply cannot alter your movement while aiming an harpoon, even if you were to fire nothing at all and just hold right the entire time. I'm thinking that it's probably related to how much you steer right after firing the first harpoon to dodge the first pile of wood, but despite how much I try to mix it up I can't seem to find any consistent results.

I guess it's also worth pointing out that the scenarios where Del Lago misses you look completely different than the usual getting knocked out scenario. It doesn't seem that there's any inbetween; either your boat completely comes to a stop and you get hit, or the boat suddenly gains speed and del lago resurfaces somewhere else entirely, which is really confusing.

Still though, I really appreciate the help you guys have given so far! don't wanna sound like I'm just disregarding all advice, I am trying pretty much everything at this point lol

@SmileAndPatch I've found that's helpful, but well, the problem I'm having isn't landing the 4th hit, but rather not being knocked out of the boat by Del Lago after he resurfaces for the first time (and without dropping the harpoon that is)

Hello, I just began to practice speedrunning for this game. I've seen a couple of videos where the runner gets a 4th hit on Del Lago without ever dropping the harpoon, Del Lago just barely missing them to the left. However, 90% of the time I try this, it goes straight for me and knocks me out of the boat. What are the requirements/inputs needed for Del Lago to miss you?

I've looked over a couple of tutorials but all of them drop the harpoon and steer right after the 3rd hit..