At some point, you will need to acquiring more sailors for their crew. You may do so at any port or settlement, or upon the successful capture of another ship, by making a DC 20 Bluff (to trick sailors on board), Diplomacy (to convince people to join the crew), or Intimidate (to press-gang new crew) check. Each such check takes 1 full day, and a successful check results in 1d4+2 new crew members for your ship. Depending on where you recruit, you will get crew with slightly different job titles and builds, although that doesn't make any difference when it comes down to fighting or managing the crew (but it makes it a bit more fun for me). There might be Shipmates, Sailors, Pirates, Corsairs, etc.

Unlike many other NPC hirelings, pirate crews do not have a daily wage. Instead, they are paid shares of the ship’s plunder taken in acts of piracy, when that plunder is sold. Rather than try to recreate the complexity of share amounts for historical pirate crews, the PCs should simply deduct 1 point of plunder from their total each time they attempt to sell Plunder. This represents the shares of the plunder paid out to the crew, regardless of the actual amount of gold received for its sale. This Adventure Path assumes that the PCs follow these guidelines to keep their crew happy and well paid. It is left to the GM to decide how a crew reacts if the PCs do not pay them plunder on a regular basis.

You appoint Petty Officers to manage your ship & crew on a daily basis, and normal sailing tasks are handled by these NPCs on your behalf. When there is a storm brewing, you are in pursuit of another vessel, or there is some other dangerous situation - you should be on hand to assist with, or take over, crew management duties.

When you storm a vessel or settlement - your crew fight in the background, under the leadership of their petty officers. The PCs take on the officers, leaders etc …