A WORD OF ADVICE for any players shooting for 100% completion on all missions. (or at least on all of the NAVAL missions)

DO NOT UPGRADE YOUR BOAT WITH THE NAVAL RAM!!!

Completing the optional qualifiers in the FINAL naval privateer mission is EXCEPTIONALLY difficult if you have your boat outfitted with the ram.

Took me HOURS to do with the ram upgrade in place (you can't downgrade or remove it) and per online guides, there's no good alternate way to make it any easier.

You basically need to expose the "powder holds" on three ships, the best way to do it is ramming the other ships. Cannonfire doesn't really do the trick effectively without decimating the ships and the ram makes for 1-hit kills almost 90% of the time.

Not having the ram causes WAY less damage on impact and apparently exposes the holds better.

Best of luck!