Ah, so many chickens running around like the sky is falling! Fruit is actually a brilliant addition to the game, since it gives treasure runners a much-needed hosing. As for rules snarls:

1-cargo ships simply don't load fruit.
2-cargo ships load fruit and dump an Explorer if necessary. This will probably become errata for the "Explorer must remain on ship to complete Explore action" rule.
Ships with three or more cargo don't present a problem.
Since abilities don't stack, we won't have to worry about multiple Fruits -- you can lose two cargo to Fruit, but no more.

As for strategies: sure, we'll be seeing Fruit fleets, but there are two ways to deal with them:

-- Big ships: DHII, La Joya, Pandora, and even sixers like the Cassandra, Lady Provost, and Raven's Neck won't be impressed by Fruit. It'll slow 'em down, but that's about it. Ravens and L'Artesiens will be hosed by Fruit, but that's a good thing. They were dominating the game anyway and needed to be hosed.
-- Mermaids. Fruit fleets will, by necessity, be gunboat-heavy, and Mermaids stops them in their tracks (and no, sac captains don't help here -- you can't give the ship actions for X turns, and the number of actions you have per turn doesn't really enter into it). Many of us thought Mermaids would basically kill the gunboat element of the game, but with Fruit on the field it just means people will have to use balanced fleets (and use big cargo ships to haul cargo, instead of quick little schooners and sloops).

Fruit is not a rules nightmare, and it's not a bad thing -- indeed, it's a brilliant addition to the game that does a lot to balance various strategies out and make the game feel more like an actual boat game rather than the perverse abomination it became with the release of Crimson Coast.

My bad. I saw that scurvy gets removed, and I thought the fruit gets removed as well. Scurvy isn't going to help you fight fruit--and of course editing posts isn't allowed, so my rash comments stay until/unless I go and delete them.

i totally forgot about this :) hahaha

okay , Fruit isn't such a good idea now ... Plague and Scurvy still rule ;)