Man, we got into a naval battle with four other galleons in Sea of Thieves tonight over a skull fort. It was fucking nuts. We outlasted something like twelve to fifteen ships when you count them sinking and returning for more. Our ship did eventually sink, but one of our guys survived on the island and we quickly made it back and finished the fort. By the time the battle was over, over an hour had passed and all but one other galleon had given up and gone to look for easier prey.
I sank three ships by myself using the tried and true explosive barrel attack. I've now found that, if you can get in the water in front of an enemy ship with a barrel, you can let it go and it will float to the surface. When the ship hits it, it will detonate and fuck up their hull. So instead of trying to sneak onto their ship with the explosive, I use the explosive first, then grab the ladder and wait a few seconds until the enemies are panicking and trying to bail out their ship before going up and feeding a few of them my shotgun.
We ended up completing the fort and getting out with almost all of the loot before the other galleon got back. We made a break for the nearest outpost and got there before they could catch us. This was our last run of the night, so we all went to the top of the mountain on that outpost to the pub and got shitfaced and threw buckets of vomit at each other.
In a brilliant twist, while we were screwing around, the other galleon had collected the two or three bits of cheap loot we had left behind at the skull fort and came to the same outpost to sell it. We ended up killing them all again, stealing that loot, selling it, and then sinking their ship for good measure.
Earlier in the night, we completed another skull fort only for an enemy galleon to show up right at the end. Rather than loot the fort, we ran with the key (keys stay active for something like two hours). They chased us for a good fifteen to twenty minutes in a wonderful cat and mouse game. We boarded their ship a couple of times, but they were constantly on watch and we only were able to drop their anchor once.
We came up with a new tactic on the fly. We had one of our guys grab the key and, as we rounded an island and got out of their view, he dove into the water and hid on the island. He was there for at least ten minutes while we led them away before eventually confronting them in an intentionally doomed effort. We let them sink us and, back at the outpost is spawned us to, we changed the paint job on our hull and then went back to pick our friend up.
We ended up getting all the loot in that skull fort, but even if we hadn't, just making sure those other assholes didn't get it was reward enough.