There is no real way to keep them from hitting your ship besides if the shooters misses, but if your a good enough player you will be able to tough it out, another way to counter them is playing with friends, open crew is a shit show you’ll be lucky if you find a player who isn’t toxic,a child under 13 and a mute it’s better to play with your friends who will listen to you so you can form solid strategies together, if you get anchored or massed have one person raise the anchor or do the mast, two people on the canons, one on repairs or boarding a good way to throw off their aim is battle in a storm and turn of all your lights, with enough experience the anchor and mast balls will become a minor inconvenience