Player behavior in this game has always confused me, but lately I have been dumbfounded by the things players are doing recently. It seems like every single player will run away from you, no matter what. And I have also seen that some of these players come onto the forums and express frustration about players chasing them for hours. I kind of want to get some insight into what is going through these players' heads, as it just makes no sense to me.
When I see a ship run away for an extended period of time, the first thing I think is that they have some serious loot on them and might be low on supplies to adequately fight back. By running, you are making sure that the other player will want to stay engaged in this fight until they know what you have.
If you have been running for a while and brushing close to islands, it will make me think that you have been scattering high value loot on places to come back to later after you sink. At this point I am likely to stick to you like glue even after we sink you, perhaps hiding someone on the ship as a scout, keeping our distance and watching your every move, etc.
Those are really the only two logical reasons I can think of to flee. I have only ever fled when low on supplies or had something high value like a fort key or athena's. So from my perspective, you definitely are worth chasing forever if you run. But it seems like a huge majority of players have nothing on their ships at all and will run anyways. And this just makes no sense to me.
If you have nothing to lose, you should attempt to go in and fight your pursuer because if you sink with nothing on you and look like a noob, the other crew will probably let you get back to your voyage in search of more lucrative players to kill. You also get a chance to work on your combat skills without any stakes. There just doesn't seem to be a reason not to fight if you have nothing. At the very least scuttle your ship right in front of them and let them know you aren't worth their time in the future. I see way too many people complaining about others chasing them and wasting their time when it's your own fault. Just scuttle and be done with them. Very few players will repeatedly spawn hunt and kill you repeatedly unless you frustrated them. And by far the most frustrating thing in this game is someone running away for no good reason. Everyone who enjoys PvP in SoT gets very frustrated by the guy on the sloop with a single chicken running away for an hour. So if you find yourself getting griefed you only have yourself to blame for not getting the process over and done with.