Dear Ben : Firstly, yep, it's pretty crap losing all your ships : but it happens, for various reasons : spite, anger, greed or plain old boredom at times. Port control is a gold-hungry game ; it costs a lot to take a port, it cost even more try to to keep it and it can all be lost in the 2 minutes before reset: it's why solo players rarely manage to hold one for long, especially if they are up against a nation with income from several ports and a treasury built up over time from that income: So, suggesting taking it on your own was bad advice: why the bad advice was given may, again, have many reasons; some folk push their own agenda without regard for the consequences for others, some folk plain don't really know and some enjoy the chaos they can cause. No judgments made on which it was, folk will draw their own conclusions based on what they know of the players involved. A harsh lesson, better learnt from seeing others suffer it than yourself, yes, but it is what it is.
Losing all the ships? Yep, once you were zero-ed,
some-one was going to be taking them: few will pass up the opportunity to add to their own fleets or gain a valuable ship, so, a feeding frenzy is inevitable in such cases. Logically, does it really matter who takes them as they were lost anyway? My own view, I would rather a friendly face benefits than the ones who cast on me to cause the whole business. But that's not always a consolation.
But you are not 'finished' or 'destroyed' : you still have you officers, you still have turns, you still have your voodoo chest, you still have your daily presents, you still have your warehouses and stock within, you still have your gold reserves, buried or deposited in banks : re-building is not impossible, many have done it or are doing it : I see one player who lost 20-odd SotLs and countless traders is back and growing again and all respect to him for doing it.
Take the time to consider how and why you were beaten : consider what could have been done to mitigate the losses, or frustrate the attackers, or delay the outcome until you logged in. Unarmed trade fleets are floating banks for raiders ; either as plunder or captures and they need little in the way of fighting ships or risk-taking to do that: Up the ante on your new fleets : make it more difficult to plunder them, make the rewards less if they succeed : you have the officers : run fleets of 2x level1 howkers : let them get rich hitting those! Or put a mid-level warship in the lead on each trade fleet: a BoW carries a nice kick, let the raiders sows and cutters bounce off those for a loss on each hit : make them use bigger ships and carry a greater risk of being plundered themselves for doing so. The worse position you can put yourself in, as a trader, is to be seen as an easy hit, a floating farm, an open purse ; make it tough for them and they will get bored and go look for softer targets elsewhere : after all, they need to make a profit too!
Head up, learn the lessons, go forward stronger and a bit meaner