To be honest the whole "drunken sailor" act was not aboard ships, but at ports.  Why did sailors get drunk at ports of call, because they were not allowed to get drunk aboard ships while it was at sea.   While I personally have not been on board a sail boat, the wife has, and had her nose broke by people who dd not know what they were doing and were unsafe in securing one of the booms.   A drunk crew was a crew which tended to die at sea, and the ships officers, as well as senior sailors, knew such, and thus even among pirate ships discipline tended to very tight when a ship was under-weigh.<br/><br/>The main difference between pirate ships at the time period and ships of other Navies was very much the difference between the North and the South officer corps during the Civil War, or at least the start.   Officers normally came from families with wealth, station, or influence, or had patrons of such.  Thus officers would often be people who earn their positions because of such, and not on their own skill or competence.  Non-commissioned officer, especially press ganged non-comms, resented the hell out of such.  So when such sailors left (or deserted) their former navy, they made certain such would not happen on their watch, so officers on such such ships were elected, not merely given out because of who Daddy was, and thus if an officer wanted to stay in such a position they had to prove themselves to the crew they earned their spot.  It was also why until the later part of the 1700's pirate ships were so successful against ships of the lines in the West Indies, and not because the Navies of Europe did not think it was not a worthy investment.<br/><br/>I know we are going for more hollywoodish action than grim and accurate history with the game here, but if people wanted to pattern behaviors of some of their characters, doing so after Blacksails (which is one of the more honest depictions of pirates in modern media) than Pirates of the Caribbean would be my take on it.  Also another good source of material would be C. S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower novels.  Now I was asking before as I did not know what type of theme we were going for the game, artistic licence all the way, or as real as possible despite the large number of female pirates in the game.  Now I know and I am cool, but I did want players t know where I was coming from, as a person who did some research into this era in the past and why I was asking for clarification as the height of piracy was less Treasure Island and more Voyages of the Golden Hind.