'The only hostages onboard the "mother-ship" will be the crew of that vessel, the skiffs having successfully attacked and taken over their target vessel need the crew of that target vessel onboard to operate the ship and keep it running. There have been no instances of a ship being ransomed separately from its crew, so the crews are not on the "mother-ships".'

Did I miss something here? Aren't you saying in the first sentence that the original crew IS indeed on the 'mother ship', and in the second that they are not?