What are the best sailor / pirate classes?

My party just hijacked a ship, and they've recruited their crew already but I haven't actually created said crew. Due to their TYPICAL frigging luck they did amazingly well on their rolls for recruits. So I've got their weapons crew already handled as siege gunner gunslingers, but the rest of the crew I still need to take care of. There’s going to be a few rogues and swashbucklers obviously, but what other classes would do best? There's a few humans, half-elfs, elves and a dwarf or 2 if race matters. I just don't want them to ALL be swashbucklers or rogues. There's also a cleric and wizard.

Corsair Fighters.

How about one or more Sea Singer bards too?

Druid. All druid. Alter Winds, Read Weather, Touch of the Sea. Eventually wildshape into sharks and water elementals. Spontaneous Summon Nature's Ally (dolphin and eagle are on the level 1 list). Shark/Dolphin animal companion. If it ever comes down to you versus a natural environment, you want a druid. And the water is dangerous as #@$%.

I didn't even think about druids... The cleric just became a druid ;-) thanks. Any more ideas? I'll go through the other 2 shortly.

Maybe an alchemist? A standard one would be fine.

A Chirurgeon could serve as the crews doctor.

An Eldritch Poisoner could make the crew's weapons more deadly.

A Grenadier could work too. Its an offense focused alchemist archetype.

An air/water kineticist. They are great at sea.

You can mix some aquatic Skinwalkers (Shark or Crocodile) among the crew. ^^

Infiltrator Ranger or water fav terrain.

Another fighter archetype: Cad. This one is based around dirty fighting.

Pirate archetype Rogue. Deck fighting is nasty business and they get some unique abilities using the ships rigging and dealing lots of sneak attack damage. Sea Reaver Barbarians make good raging crew and Vikings as well as Savage Technologists for firearm savagery.

My advice will come in the form of things that are not just viable, but also powerful and interesting:

1. Rogues and Swashbucklers have a ton of issues going into piracy, mostly in the shape of their disgusting Fortitude saves. Luckily for Rogues, you can safely dump INT to pump CON and take the Twist Away feat early on to cover this up.

2. Slayers and Rangers are honestly the bet class for this. They can switch between ranged and melee combat easily, they work better with medium armor and they have enough skills to play around.

3. Vigilantes are more specialized than the latter but perfect for your Dread Pirate Roberts types. Gunmaster is also an option.

4. B!~$&es don't know about the Dragon Skald. It's the best pirate class bar none.

5. You'd be surprised at how good a pirate an Occultist makes. Transmutation for physical buffs and Evocation to blast stuff from afar, plus Divination to look for plunder.

Have you thought of monks? They do not rely on armor like many other classes. Can you imagine them swiming over to the other ship? They get all the physical skills that would be needed on a ship. The lawful aspect is covered under following the pirates code.

After that I would suggest sorcerer. Fire spells on the sails and lightning for the fishes.

And lastly a bard... I know get the laughs out of your system. They have bardic knowledge and a boatload of skill knowledgeespecially. They have light armor which means it is easier to climb and swim.

Barrrd and Barrrbarian are a pirate's favorite classes. ;)

Savage Technologist Barbarian, gun and sword in melee with no problem. Ignore the high tech stuff, just get a brace of pistols and quick draw them. Opening Volley is great with this one too.

Rangers and slayers. 6+ skill ranks, that really fit the pirate theme: Climb, Craft, Intimidate, Knowledge geography, Knowledge nature, Perception, Profession, Stealth, Survival, Swim.

Gunslingers do amazingly well since boarding party fights are always at very tight ranges.

Bards can inspire a heck of a lot of crewmen in a fight. That's nice. There are a couple of good archetypes for rangers that work well for piracy campaigns. Both make excellent specialist sub-officers working under PCs.

Piracy campaigns are also excellent fodder for leadership feats.

Rangers and slayers work great imo, and the rogue and bard are quite thematic if you can find something to help with seasickness. I am in particular a fan of the thundercaller bard . It loses some subtlety you can usually do without, and being able to call a thunderstorm at sea can be a pretty scary experience. Bards are pretty handy on a ship overall, even with their poor fortitude saves. Apart from that, really, most classes work well. Paladins just have a harder time fitting in.

Skalds and Bards look like they'll fit, depending on what you're going for. There's always the guy beating on drums to mark the rhythm for the rowers, so Bards could fit that, and Skalds could whip your group into a frenzy.

And as The Shaman said, pretty much all classes could fit in there depending on flavour, except Paladins. Clerics and Inquisitors of Besmara, Witches, Shamans and Oracles with nautical patrons/mysteries (there's literally a Sea Witch archetype) such as Water, Storms (Witch), Waves, and Wind (Oracle and Shaman), Rangers with Water favored terrain, Summoner with an aquatic eidolon, Alchemists as the ship's doctor/cannoneer, and so on.

Answer: Anything with Profession Sailor and a few early ranks in Climb and Swim.

You can flavor just about any class as a pirate. It is more in your way of Life (the RP) and not the name of the Class/Archetype on the piece of Paper.

A few classes that really excel being a pirate?

Druid- The ability to control weather, seas and Shape shift are very strong.

Bard- Inspiring a Crew, Being one of the best Skills based classes, and the Ability to Charm/Dominate Humaniods can take you far.

Swashigator (Inspired Blade Swash 1/ Emp. Investigator X)- This guy has Skills, combat abilities, and tons of Utility. I am a player who hates the Swashbuckler as a stand alone Base class. IMHO is one of the Weaker base Classes...but it is good for a single dip or up to 5 levels but beyond that it is not worth it.

Slayer/Ranger- These guys have a lot of Skills and abilities that are very useful. Typically pirates don't have Heavy armors so the Full Plated Fighter is not going to shine on a ship and in water like a Lighter armored Skirmisher types.

Bloodrager/Barbarian- Ignoring Skills for strong combat abilities these are not bad choices. I favor the Bloodrager and just DOMINATED Skulls and Shackles with a Primalist Spelleater Arcane Bloodrager.

The freebooter ranger is incredible. Double flank bonuses and hand out essentially favoured enemies left and right with no limit. Plus they swim well

Have you considered making one or two of the siege gunners Siege Mages, instead, to head the cannon crews?

I agree with the Bard/Skald advice, and it is worth noting the two could combine to buff any Str based melee characters present. That might be nice for the low level sailor types. Another Bard archetype which can stack bonuses is the Archivist, who could help cover even more Knowledge skills.

Also, nobody would expect a Mammoth Rider. If you can get the DM to permit an animal companion with a Swim speed it might be thematic and effective. If not then a Druid could still make a mammoth (or a mammoth sized tiger) Air Walk.

Don't overlook the NPC classes. A few well built Expert and Warriors would work great.

Sure they are not as powerful, but they come in mass

As said before, just about anything with Profession Sailor can do it.

Take this time to mix it up. For example, I run a pirate themed Witch in PFS. Commadore Spiritsong has one or two AOE spells to clear the deck of an enemy ship, plenty of utility to assist the crew, and the Spirit patron has been a life saver against the inevitable ghost encounters.

I'm toying with the idea of a Summoner who uses a "steam elemental" to help power the ship and Kraken it up against enemy vessels. So basically a Water Elemental with fire based evolutions and skills related to engineering and sailing.

Probably a wizard. Great spells to control the weather, powerful in combat to take enemy ships, a ton of skill points to handle being the captain.

A crew of wizard pirates sounds good to me

I agree with the Bard/Skald advice, and it is worth noting the two could combine to buff any Str based melee characters present. That might be nice for the low level sailor types. Another Bard archetype which can stack bonuses is the Archivist, who could help cover even more Knowledge skills.

Also, nobody would expect a Mammoth Rider. If you can get the DM to permit an animal companion with a Swim speed it might be thematic and effective. If not then a Druid could still make a mammoth (or a mammoth sized tiger) Air Walk.

Killer whales per wikipedia are 32 feet long and weigh 10 tons. That would be pretty sweet.

I'm not sure how heroic this ships crew is, but most of them could just be Fighter/Rogue. It's a little bland but it is pretty normal and fits the generic idea.

Bard archetype buccaneer. Makes enemy crews throw down their arms.

Fighter archetype mutation warrior. Junkie pirate who needs to get his fix.

Witch- ships healer. Can use fortune hex on sailors for super profession sailor checks. There are alot of good spells for ships on the witch list like:
Air bubble, jury rig, nature's path, unseen servant, wave sheild, aboleths lung, buonyancy, control vermin, mirror hideaway, and recoil fire for 1&2. Skeleton crew is a great spell at level 4 too.

And the witch can have a blue ringed octopus as a familiar!