Swamped

You don't have time to think about why someone would want to sink the ship, only about how. You hope to the gods this is just a bluff, but you can't afford to assume that.

If the main sabotage wasn't overflowing the water pumps, then what could it be? Your first thought is a hole below the sea level. You instruct the sailors to ignore roping off areas for now and search for holes instead, plugging them up by any available means.

"What if it's a lot of tiny holes?" one of the sailors asks you.

"Then if they're a real threat, they'll be leaking water," you reply. "If they aren't, then we don't have to worry. Even at high tide, we'll go up with the water, unless we've taken on too much weight." Which could explain where the pumps fit in, you realize. "We can take care of those when we next dock."

As they run off, you glance back at the note.

This reads like the sinking is a foregone conclusion. It's not a warning, nor is it triumphant. It's stating it as a fact. That doesn't line up too well with holes; even if there were a big one taking in water right now, that's far from unstoppable. A pity you can't really ask for clarification.

Or can you? That note didn't come from nowhere, after all. You may only have a vague direction to work with, but that's an improvement over the utter lack of information you had before.

As the sailors scramble off to look for more obvious problems, you decide to head down the nearest hall and see if you can catch any clue to the runaway's whereabouts.

You find something quite a bit sooner than you expected.