I'm sure it's been mentioned before but I see no reason at all why there shouldn't be an option to switching ship types at any Shipwright. There's nothing more frustrating than being in a sloop or brig with friends, gathering supplies, having a load of quests, finally about to embark on some missions and then another friend logs in and you either have to tell them they are screwed or you are forced to log out and restart in a bigger ship. Giving this option provides absolutely no advantage at all so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense why this doesn't already exist. It's often left me and my friends so frustrated to the point where the game is not very enjoyable with friends due to the hassle it brings with it on top of the thousands of issues with voice chat and sound issues this game has with other players.
Lastly, for the love of god...condense your servers, increase the player cap per server, and increase each ship's capacity by at least 1 person, allow friends to join your server or add some new ships. A four player max crew in a pirate game is just nonsense. If it's a concern that allied friends will be an issue of balance, mark them just like the reaper flag so people can determine if they want to switch servers or find a way to deal with it. Either way, stop punishing social players in a game that completely revolves around being social.
