Try to work your way from the center of the ship outward, this gives you a better position to tetris your pieces to map spots, also gaining treasure pieces.

Treasure pieces are valuable for bridging your pieces toward trickier map spots. Sometimes it's worth keeping treasure cards for the next turns, but beware of waiting too long and getting your treasure pieces taken before you can use them.

Some cards lose or gain utility as the game progresses, for example:

• Adding a treasure or cat at any part of the board is very useful early, but grows obsolete by the third/fourth turn (because by that point you will have enough pieces bridging to the sides of the boat)
• Public Lessons get more valuable as choices as the game progresses and you have a better idea of how your board is turning out. It's usually better to skip them on the first turns, since you're wasting a card choice that could benefit you more specifically AND you're helping out your opponent design their boat around the public lesson card without them having to waste a card choice.