To repair, you need at least part of a second crew section. There's a pulldown list to select rigging, guns or hull. The ship can't do much else other than drift or move straight to start or continue repairing. So turning, firing, reloading, meleeing and full sails going up/down all prevent repairs. After three turns of repairing something (don't have to be three in a row), two squares are repaired. Captured ships can be repaired if there's enough crew.

Prisoners stay on their ship and will take it back over if the ratio of prize crew to prisoners falls below 1:6 for any reason (melee, crew damage, etc). You also lose the points for a captured ship.

Hope that helps.

--- Message edited by Longneck