It’s my understanding that a crew NPCs costs about 1.5 gold per hour. At that rate, it would cost 288 gold a day to pay for enough crew members to man 8 cannons. It looks like that would force you to farm gold a lot.
Am I understanding that right and how much time do you guys spend farming gold to cover your crew cost?
I believe the cost is greatly reduced while anchored. Like once every 3 hours or something like that. The cost is the same just how often you pay them changes.
I never thought I’d say it out loud, but Komma is correct. 
Yout can also put points into the skill tree for lower crew cost, I think it’s under Captaineering. Also level up your ships Accommodation skills. Maxed out I think it will be something like 6 gold per day per NPC (slightly more when not anchored of course).
Doing a couple treasure maps with a bear once a week should cover expenses. Or a handful of sunken treasure dives.
The cost of your crew scales directly with your distance from land. At open sea you’re paying say 1g per hour, anchored, you’re paying 0.5g per hour. (Numbers might not be exact 
Thanks for the help guys. Now it doesn’t seem so bad. 