@schwammlgott I know what you mean, but whenever we needed the whole crew to bail water on the brig, this was to do with poor performance on the cannons and my lazy approach as a helmsman. I can see this voyage, ghost fleets, Flameheart WE to be a problem for unexperienced crews tho. Also If I am not mistaken, once you get rid of the ghost ship protecting a fort they don't respawn, and they only take 3 shots. So normally you can land all 3 before they manage to fire a 2nd shot.
Imo, these struggles is a great opportunity to view them as practice for PVP/HG. If you can quickly land shots on moving/stationary targets, this will help in real combat, it won't make you good at it, but it will certainly be a huge stepping stone getting there.