Speaking of the Chinese and the Polynesians, that's another thing that mildly annoys me about these ship rules. They're too Eurocentric. D&D nicely represents many different cultures. Rise of Tiamat has the Ice Hunters of the Sea of Moving Ice with Kayaks (they call them Kyeks, I think) and Tomb of Annihilation has a large, six-person Canoe for sale.
I'd have liked to see a good Polynesian outrigger or catamaran as well. How about the Philipino Karakoa? I dunno, some variety would have been interesting.
Speaking of which, while we are on the subject of Elves. That would have been interesting too. Why not get a few of the artists to do some imaginings of what an Elf ship would look like? Even if they conclude, like Hussar, that elves shouldn't have "better" ships than everyone else (it's a good argument, I think), they'd probably at least have "pretty" ships, wouldn't they? What's a dwarf ship like?