This is being adjusted in the upcoming patches, sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Originally posted by Zebby:

Originally posted by Jesse Rapczak: This is being adjusted in the upcoming patches, sometime tonight or tomorrow.

Thank god, and I pray that it's a REALISTIC PLAYABLE timer. But thanks for the hard work, keep it up. Starting to change a lot of my opinions.

Thanks for the feedback, that's what EA is for ;)

Here is the relevant patch note:- Removed requirement to be on a boat to steal someone's boat after placing the claim flag. Adjusted base value times to claim the boats to be 1 one minute to steal a dinghy, 30 minutes to steal a raft, a couple hours to steal sloop, and so forth (levelling a ship increases the time it takes to steal that ship).