Darkvision limited to 60ft. Nighttime navigation was based on stars. A ship can barely contain enough ale to last a dwarf a month, let alone an entire crew...

below decks in ships were notoriously dark

That's a feature, not a bug.

I have issue with almost all of your points. - Dex & wisdom would be the important stats for sailors IMO (i am not saying strength and con are useless, but just not as important, they would be 3rd and 4th IMO). - Darkvision wouldn't do a damn thing, its range would barely get off the side of the boat. - Poison resistance is not disease resistance. - Some spoiled food would be poison, but some would also be disease (depends on how it spoiled and the food). - In order for short stature to be relevant to ship design, they would need a completely custom designed ship tailor made for them, which would have benifits but sounds unlikely for what pirates would be sailing. (That being said, a dwarven merchant ship designed speciifcally for their stature would be a massive pain for normal height characters to battle on) - lower speed means they swim slower too which means going overboard is even worse.

indeed, get boarded by someone without darkvision/good light source? just retreat below decks and slaughter them

Probably a bad idea. If I was leading a boarding party, and all the defender's retreated below decks, I'd consider it a victory. Take down the sails, pin the rudder, then park my ship outside of their cannons' firing arc. Then just wait. Maybe have my crew bring over buckets of shit, vomit, or whatever other vile substances we could find, and dump them down the grates. If I got real desperate, I could just board up the doors and set the ship on fire. Sure, I'll miss out on most of the treasure, but those dwarves will probably burn to death before the boat totally sinks.

tall ships are a hate crime to dwarves

I like the mental image of a dwarf ship that's 6 ft tall and got 47 masts to make up for it.

Darkvision limited to 60ft. Nighttime navigation was based on stars. A ship can barely contain enough ale to last a dwarf a month, let alone an entire crew...

Probably a bad idea. If I was leading a boarding party, and all the defender's retreated below decks, I'd consider it a victory. Take down the sails, pin the rudder, then park my ship outside of their cannons' firing arc. Then just wait. Maybe have my crew bring over buckets of shit, vomit, or whatever other vile substances we could find, and dump them down the grates. If I got real desperate, I could just board up the doors and set the ship on fire. Sure, I'll miss out on most of the treasure, but those dwarves will probably burn to death before the boat totally sinks.

Get off that rock, we're about to undock!

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> “How will the dwarves feel about eating spoiled food and being separated from everything their culture cherishes?” Same way human sailors do, probably.

I think sailing has been pretty staple culture for humans for at least 3000 years if not more.

>Darkvision limited to 60ft. Nighttime navigation was based on stars. You don't need darkvision to see stars and that would be dim light, so darkvision is a boon

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Then it doesn't help navigation

It still means they can see the area within 60' of the boat as if it were daylight (but greyscale)

How does that help with navigation?

Yes, but before maybe the 15th century they didn't really go on the really long voyages without frequent stops for resupply that lead to severe nutritional deficits. Maybe on accident or in unusual circumstances, but not as a standard modus operandi. Most of the time, people just sailed within sight of the coast.