Ships take more damage

Can you clarify what you mean? It's not the damage that sinks you so depending on capability of the crew to bilge there is quite a variance in how much damage is involved

I'm pretty sure rare has this balanced pretty well, they have had a lot of time and a lot of data to see how recoverable it is, and based on my hourglass experience as a bilge pump, I can confidently say you can outrun like 5-6 tier 2 holes on lower on a sloop easily by bucketing, and get to the point where you can repair.

@hiradc If I had to guess I think they meant that they want the threshold before it's too hard to outrun the water with solo bucketing to be raised.