Ghost ships and sinking a ship without ever having to fire a shot

Twice in Sea of Thieves I have encountered something that has completely captivated me. A ship with no crew.
The first time was just after a few friends and I had just opened the vault at a fortress. Our lookout announced a galleon sailing straight for us. Surely they had seen the skull in the sky disappear and had come to catch us while we were most vulnerable. Our lookout fired their self out of a cannon and swam out to hit their anchor to buy us some time to bring what we had, hide what we could, and run back to the ship for battle only to have it announced that he stood on their deck, anchored, alone. We panicked a bit. They had to be swimming over. We secured more loot and watched the shores and ladders religiously but nothing ever came. Our lookout searched the boat and found nothing. In paranoia we sailed out to meet it and cannoned it far more than necessary. A mermaid popped out of the water but no one swam to meet it and after a time it sank back beneath the waves leaving us, honestly, a bit unnerved
The second time it was an anchored sloop in our path to turn in a merchant quest from Lone Cove to Daggertooth. It sat, sails at full, out of reach of any island. At first we thought it must be at a shipwreck. Oh how we were going to laugh when they climbed back aboard and wet their pants as a galleon barreled in their direction. They'd raise anchor and flee. But it never happened. We passed by at full speed a few feet away and saw nothing. There were no birds, no barrels, no one in the water. One of ours jumped off the back and swam over to find no one aboard and no foreseeable reason to be stopped. He and another on our crew debated raising it's anchor and taking it with us as an extra ship, but they ultimately decided against it, in case someone did respawn on it as we sat at port turning in and we watched it sit and disappear into the distance as we sailed away. I joked with my crewmates about it being a spooky ghostship but honestly I was the one who was spooked
Private crews became a thing and inspiration hit me like a bolt of lightning
My one-man galleon left Galleon's Grave and I turned off every light below deck, ate every banana and fired every cannonball into the ocean as took her to the dead center of the map. Hopefully there I'd be able to see far enough into all three sections to spot some prey. Luck seemed to be on my side. Another galleon sailing East between Chicken Isle and the arched rock. I brought up all three sails so it could barely be perceived they were open and I pointed my ship right at them. They had to have seen me but perhaps I wasn't going fast enough for them to care. They dropped anchor at Crooks Hollow and I inched closer. I'd sail right by the island off to their side. If they boarded they'd find nothing and oh how I would giggle. Maybe if I could stay hidden long enough and they seemed thoroughly perplexed I'd give them a Ghostly Wail. But they must decided I was too close for comfort at a certain point and took off. They began sailing towards Ancient Spire and I climbed down from my hiding place in the sails to make sure the boat was always pointed at them. They took off chasing a sloop South and I lost them for a moment as they passed behind rocks and a nearby fort before I saw their sails pop around the back side of Ancient Spire and I crept closer. The took off again. Farther this time. To Shipwreck Bay
By now I'm starting to get extremely bored and a bit annoyed. All this work and time for so little payoff. But I stick to my guns and finally start closing in on them again. They're inside the bay, trapped if I had intended to attack them, but I point my ship to pass within arm's reach of the rock around the island, this time I'd get their attention. I climb up to the crow's nest, jump down to the middle sail, and sleep with my back against the mast.
I probably audibly sighed when they took off right past me, three cannons dumping balls into the sea around my ship. None hit though. But I hear someone swimming up! Here it comes! Vindication! My anchor drops. Now they'll search the ship and find nothing. The excitement builds and a sniper shot rings out from the deck and kills me instantly up in the sail. How? How did they know I was there? How did it only take one shot? Now I'm super disappointed. I step through the doors of the ferry and onto my deck. All my sails are down, there's a second one aboard and they clearly plan on ramming my boat into the rocks and sailing me away. Their ship heads off to Crooked Masts. I don't know what I'm going to do now. I just stop the one from raising my anchor. They both start shooting at me. I jump around, running from one end of the ship to the other, avoiding blunderbuss shots and sword slashes as best I can. I don't have any bananas to heal and my life slowly drops lower and lower with each glancing blow. I hear them splashing as they jump back in the water, bored, I guess, of an harmless enemy that never fought back. And there I was alone again.
Only one path seemed obvious to me. I closed the sails back to next to nothing, raised the anchor, pointed my ship to sail right past them at Crooked Masts, and sat down behind the barrels at the front of the boat on the bottom deck
Cannonfire. Well this is it, I guess. No impacts. Crooked Spire's titleplate pops up.
I have to be close now. Swimming! I hear swimming! They're coming back aboard. I hear a mermaid pop up. The swimming stops. More cannonfire. More swimming. I hear someone hit the ladder. I wait, angling my camera to point over the barrel at the stairs. No one comes down. I wait. I sigh again as I realize they probably just plan on opening the sails all the way back up and crashing me. I guess I can never have fun. I trudge up the stairs.
My galleon is facing North now BACK towards their waiting ship at Crooked Masts, my sails are untouched. There's a third new face on my ship, already firing at me. I run, drop the anchor, and jump around dodging. This time I'm definitely going to die. But they stop and just stare at me. I stop and look at them. They walk to the bow of my ship, point at their own galleon and it turns over as it sinks against the island before they turn back to me and just stand there clapping. I must've stood there for almost two minutes, just confused. Did they scuttle? Did they crash chasing me? Did a third ship get involved that I never saw and never fired on me? I don't know. But the one on my ship seems to think I am either at fault or deserve congratulations and I've already wasted two hours for no reason at this point with no hope of accomplishing what I set out to do and I just log off