Coastal Pirate prestige class "Grapple Ship"... Strength check?

[VoodistMonk]

I am not totally savvy on the naval rules, so this prestige class ability doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I would imagine that basically any seaworthy vessel would yank this Coastal Pirate fool, and all his mates, overboard. Quite easily, too. But obviously a handful of dudes with grappling hooks can stop a ship.

Is there a point where a larger ship just tows whatever ship the Coastal Pirate, and crew, are in? Can't ships tow other ships?

What does this mean when it says;
"...exceeds the ship’s Strength check..."?

Grapple Ship (Su)
At 7th level, a Coastal pirate gains the ability to stop another ship dead in the water for a short time. To use this ability, the Coastal pirate must hurl a grappling hook at the target ship. The pirate is proficient with the grappling hook, and she throws it with a 20-foot range increment.

If the Coastal pirate hits the target ship, she then makes an opposed Strength check. She gains a +1 bonus on her check for every crewmate who also grapples the enemy ship, although crewmates are considered non-proficient with grappling hooks and throw them with 10-foot range increments. For every point by which the Coastal pirate exceeds the ship’s Strength check, she halts its progress for 1 round.

[Claxon]

There may be a place where the rules gives ships an equivalent strength check, but I don't know it off hand. But if that exist than the rules work fine.

You such a good pirate that somehow you can magically stop a ship from moving in 6 seconds, assuming you're strong enough.

As for "realism" - it's supernatural, so it's definitely a magical sort of effect.

[Firebug]

Looks like you are talking about the Shackles Pirate (also known as Coastal Pirate on other websites for copyright reasons).

First thing to note, is that it was printed during the 3.5 era, as noted by the 3.5 icon (on Archive of Nethys) and the fact that it requires the 'use rope' skill that no longer exists in Pathfinder. It looks like D20pfsrd 'updated' the prestige class to Pathfinder rules with no sources shown as to how or why or what they changed. This is why D20pfsrd is not a good rules source because they just 'fixed it' with no mention that it been changed.

So doing some quick research, I can't find a strength score for a ship in 3.5, but I don't have many of those books anymore. If I was GMing, I would probably just use the chart for Fogcraft vessels in the Shackles Pirate entry as a starting point from the original book(Pathfinder Chronicles Campaign Setting).