Please don't expect an exiting story, but these are Tales that happen in SoT too.
Doing riddle-quests solo is always a risk, as i found out again yesterday.
Just getting back to my sloop with a marauders chest, i saw a gally nearby, heading obviously towards my parked ship.
Being on Krakens Fall, i got enough directions to go, so i just set sails to get away from the Galleon.
Of course the Galleon turns towards me and follows me without any communication attempt.
After one full circle around the island i decided to just drop the marauders chest so they can pick it up and i can go ahead.
They sailed past the chest without slowing down, so they seem to ignored it.
I dropped another explosive "gift", which they sadly missed too.
So now my ship was empty, only carrying the usual supplies and no loot anymore, but they are still following me towards Ancient Spire Outpost, almost straight against the wind.
As the wind turned, i turned too, changing the course more towards west, keep going almost straight against the wind and making the hunt as boring as possible. But they are still following me, not catching up at all.
The wind now turnes again, so it's time to turn the sails to the other side, make a slight course correction to pass Plunder Outpost on it's northern shore.
Having this done, i had a look at the Galleon and realized, thes needed quite a while until they turned the sails into the wind after changing their course too.
Shortly afterwards they seem to realize that they wouldn't get the fight or plunder they were looking for and turned towards Plunder Outpost to anchor their ship there.
In the end i was free, staying on my actual course just to find a blue mermaid statue at Wanderers Refuge, a well filled shipwreck nearby and peaceful Golden Sands Outpost to sell everything from this wreck and even level up at the Merchant Alliance and unlock a title plus a new pocket watch. There was certainly more loot in this shipwreck than one chest, i surely made more profit due to this little regatta.
To finish it up, i still had a Gold Hoarders Voyage active, so i even travelled a couple of sea miles for the commendation, bringing me closer to more reputation.
As for the Galleon, i didn't meet them again, i hope for them that they had an active voyage too to collect some miles, otherwise they ended up with just nothing after a slow and boring hunting session. With this outcome, i didn't even tell them about the three ruby marmaid statues at Marauder's Arch i found earlier, which would have been easy progress for a galleon crew.
So keep in mind: yes, you can try to hunt down ships. But if these ships don't look for a fight, just leave them be and look for a better opportunity. Also you might miss out on some useful information.