Uncharted Waters New Horizons

Not all sailors are going to appear as vagabonds. Some of the later ones that come out as pirates are just built on free roaming stats within the game and are not part of the game itself _ odd though that may sound. Furthermore, not all the sailors in the game will become vagabonds even after you defeat them. Some of these characters are not suited to vagabond status and cannot be recruited at all, still other can only be recruited while they are actually part of another fleet_ if your skills in navigation and combat are high enough to coax them away from their own fleets. Also, not all sailors are recruitable by all characters. For instance, jaio, catalina and otto are better are recruiting battle sailors, whereas ali, pietro and ernst are better at recruiting merchant sailors.
As a for instance.... in order for Ali, Ernst, or Pietro to recruit someone as simple as Gus Johnson, usually found in Athens, they need a navigation level of 5 or better, but for Catalina, Jiao, or Otto he'll join even at level 1, because he's more suited to be a battle captain than a merchant captain. On the other hand, someone like Antoine Fitch is easier for Ali to recruit than Catalina, simply becausehe's more interested in trade than battle. The game built these characters to be this way, and if you think about it, it makes sense. I mean, Gus has Celestial Navigation and Gunnery as skills, so he'd want to be a fighting captain with his own Frigate or Full-rigged rather than be stuck on some junky little nao where he cant use the skills he has. On the other hand, Antoine fitch has the accounting skill, so he'll be happier buying and selling trade goods rather than getting his arse blown off in a sea battle he's not equipped to handle. Make sense? Then, of course, there are people like Roberto Almanzan, who have no skills at all, who'd be happy just to have a job. These type are usually pretty easy for anyone to hire. The only exception I can think of is Alonzo Oreida, who has one of the highest LUCK ratings in the game and can therefore afford to be choosy. Of course the best sailor in the game, period, is the Turkish Hero, Pilly Reis, who wont join anyone who has less than a 50 navigation level, and who has every skill there is plus nearly maxed-out stats. Right behind him is Simon Sekeira, who doesn't have much for skills but is always 1 level above everything you have. Every time you level up in either Navigation or battle levels, he levels up too, so he's always one step ahead.
Here's another interesting tidbit for you, When you go sailing with your mates, make sure you're on a brand new ship of the highest quality construction and with the Goddess figurehead, and your mates will level up even faster than normal. I like to use a copper La Reale built in Bordeaux, crew of thirty, no guns, 210 food, 210 water, and start out from Oslo. Auto sail to Nagasaki or Sakai, which should take right at 60 days. Refuel- so to speak- then sail back to Oslo for another 60 day trip. Anything more than sixty days risks your crew coming down with scurvy, so this is a perfect run. If you have the goddess figurehead, you don't have to worry about storms at all, so you dont even have to carry any balm, but you can still run across saint elmos fire around your masts, the giant ray cruising beneath your ship and some of the other nasties, but for the most part you can run uninterupted from port to port and build everyone's levels up really quick.