I agree Charlotte, it's really great to see different ideas and what works for different people.
I have found that shooting the sails off treasure fleet ships does not stop them. But it does slow them down 50%, which makes a crucial difference.
I have found over and over, that splitting the loot amongst ships, causes everyone to get bad loot.
I definitely agree that a large crew is much more fun, makes the fleet much easier to defeat and spreads the wealth to a lot more people. As I said, I open my ships up to public, for numerous reasons. By the way, I said to open ships on quiet servers - on ideal servers I also open ships to public for all the same reasons. But I avoid ideal servers for treasure fleets, for a variety of personal reasons.
I try not to tell people what class of ship they can or can't sail - some people's sailing STYLE favors a war sloop, most people favor war frigates, while people like me favor war galleons. THAT SAID, I recommend using only a single war frigate to defeat a treasure fleet. While war sloops have superb maneuverability, they just don't have the hull points to sustain more than one hit from the fleet.
When I've tried "Drake's pass" methods, I've gotten really poor results. Yes, I've still been able to sink the fleet (in fact, it is easier) but because the fleet disengages on each pass, the recorded damage is lost on each time. Since the treasure awarded is proportional to the damage dealt, only the final pass of a "Drake's pass" method is tallied. So instead of a skull chest and 6 royals, it awards a cargo crate or two.
Additionally, I've found that with two ships attacking a treasure fleet, the treasure fleet ships react in very unexpected ways. It is easier to predict what directions fleet ships will go, when there is only a single target for them to fight.
Most things in the game POTCO are counter-intuitive. For example, you always get more reputation points using your weakest attacks from your weakest weapons. The treasure fleet rules are no exception. Attacking "smart" is penalized with very poor and very little loot awarded. Since everyone aboard is likely to get max rep from each ship, it is a rare occasion where everyone should use their strongest attacks. But most of all, the captain(s) should focus on methods that allow them to stay in the fight for as long as possible - as long as they stay afloat.
I strongly agree with Molly's comments about larger crews. Yes, larger crew are a lot more fun, but only when everyone is cooperating with the same method. When people decide to do their own thing, mid-battle, everyone loses.
I'd love to hear what Molly's result are, especially after comparing a few other methods.
EDIT (Nov 8, 2010 6:22 PM):
Molly, thank you for the tip about the Bronze Cannon Ram. The description of the cannon ram, suggests that it only helps round shot when on cannon - in fact, it dramatically increases the damage of each broadsides cannonball. Likewise the Old Cannon Ram, Iron Cannon Ram and Steel Cannon Ram.
Best of all, equipping these cannon rams gives your broadsides "critical hit" probability (~40%?) which gives double damage for the critical strikes. This makes a huge difference! Thank you.