I see a lot of people are fustrated about how players can just go up and destroy your day with griefing and other activities, so I had an idea.
Just like the Reapers Mark flag, maybe you could have a peace flag, that made it so your ship stopped taking damage and would be immobile, but you could not do harm yourself, either by cannons or guns/cutlass, then other players could still rob your ship, but atleast not make you totally start from the Bottom, and if some people don't like the idea of getting robbed, then I'm sorry to say, but it is Sea of THIEVES, you could perhaps make a secret storage that could hold maybe 2-4 pieces of loot or so.
And on a side not, just so you can't exploit the peace flag, there would have to be a sought of cooldown on it before you could take it down again and move on.
Let me hear some feedback on the idea so we might be able to get it right :)