I find these ideas critical to the social aspect of this game and should be implemented ASAP.
Captains: before a crew loads into a server there should be a captain chosen. The captain can be change in game, much the same way players would brig one another, with a majority vote. This captain will dictate the ships cosmetics based on whatever they have saved as their ship’s design. Additionally, the captain will also be allowed to set the crew to private and invite in game players to the crew. Which brings me to my next points
Private crews: in the load in screen and in game there should be an option to set crews to private to prevent any random players from joining your crew.
Inviting new crew members: meeting players on the sea should be able to be more than just waving. If you crew size is not fully maxed out the captain should have to option to “invite crew member” which if accepted would immediately have a player already in the world join your crew.
Crew size limits: Should be increased to 6.
Join in progress: as long as your crew is not maxed out friends should be allowed to join you crew in progress without having to quit out of the game and switch from for example a 3 man galleon to a 4 man galleon.
New ship with new crew: if you crew size changes and if your ship is scuttled or sinks you should have the option to change your ship in game based on your new crew size.
Final note: with crew sizes changing all the time it would not be unlikely to be able to get large crews on the sloop which with current combat mechanics would make it unsinkable. A fix for this would be to increase the damage cannonballs can make to a ship in a tiered fashion up to a hole requiring 3 boards to repair. Here is a link to another post I made going into more detail about combat changes. Improved ship layout, better ship combat/damage, more ships, and larger more fluid crews
Let me know your feedback!
