You can definitely improve the game (either during this jam or if you feel like doing more with the project afterwards) by actually linking that revenge/greed to the gameplay. Maybe it was there, and I didn't notice it... but the more gold you find the more the AI can actually find you and chase you? So you'd have to be smart strategic about it, like maybe after some gold findings you go and stash it somewhere safe in your pirate base or something, and come out again to hunt for more gold. But the more you get, a) maybe your boat is slower! (haha) and b) more enemy ships chase you.
But anyways, super fun regardless, I know we didn't have time to put all of our excellent ideas in our games ;)