@Lord Pie I'm interested to see what you come up with, but I question if she makes a good addition to the crew. If she can't fight, or pull an oar, I can't see it being likely she would be brought along... I guess maybe simply "because".
As for additional characters, as
@Saix said, we've kind of discussed this and it is likely we will invite everyone to make a couple more characters to round out the crew. Other NPC's can be filled by us. There will be between 20 and 30 onboard. Others could be picked up along the way, so if you have an idea later on they can always sign on when we hit Iceland, Greenland, or Vinland.