Sailing Ships

So it seems that cargo ships these days move slower than sailing ships used to. (This has some interesting implications for a story I'm vaguely, sort of, outlining, but that's another...story.)

Here are two articles that talk about this plus the use of automation on sailing ships to reduce crew size. I can see two problems with this: (1) What about an emergency situation where having a bigger crew might mean the difference between success and failure? (2) What about a pyrate attack (since pyrates are all the rage in the news, these days, despite being a problem for years)? A crew of one or two on a cargo vessel might not be able to man the guns, let alone pass out cutlasses to repel borders...