Many people are talking about PvP players who attack only while they've got nothing on the board. Last night we were playing athena voyage on the brigantine. When i am a captain there is only one stop to sell the loot - at the end of our session, so we're always sailing with full deck of loot on our ship. We fought megalodon, skelleton ships, beat skelleton fort and some PvP. There were 2 sloops in the alliance and one of these sloops belongs to legendary pirates. We send them straight to Davy Jones few times and they changed their behavior :D
Of course it wasn't easy. We've got one man on the ship whole time. When we're on the island, our navigator was standing at the crows nest looking for hostile ships.
If you want to try your luck and hit the jackpot just pay attention to vanguard sails with orange drake figurine.