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The most significant factor I've seen for ship speed is lag. That is, two identical ships with two sailors of identical levels with identical sailing builds sailing side-by-side will not travel at the same speed.
The game has fixed speeds that skills are supposed to make happen. So, 21 knots in any sloop should be 21 knots.
Sailing towards Isla Tormenta from Isla Perdida, I'll often see a Storm Reaper far away. As I near it, smaller ships will also appear - even though they are closer to me, they appear later because they are "shorter."
Since the light sloop is "shorter" than the war sloop, other pirates cannot see it from as far away. Therefore, the server doesn't have to relay your position to as many other pirates when you are in a light sloop. The lag (network latency) from your computer, to server, to other pirate's computers, then back to the server, then back to your computer, can sometimes be significant.
So, my theory is that the light sloop really is faster in practice, because of the ancillary (minor) lag issues. If all pirate and pirate ship movement were controlled on the server (as one might reasonably expect) instead of on the client, there would be no "speed hack" and movement rates would be consistent. That's my two cents on why the light sloop works better as my "get-me-there-quick" ship.
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