Be Kind to your Gunners

[LiraEnos]

Also, I'd recommend approaching ships tangentially so that your gunners can take potshots at it while you're getting setup. I've been on quite a few ships where the captain will point his nose directly at the target which makes it practically impossible to do anything until we're already in a position to take fire, and it makes crew members more like to try to hit other ships in their sight than the one you might be trying to go for.