After you buy another ship, is there a way to send out your other ship with an experienced crew to make money or salvage stuff?

I am not sure if you can sell it, but no, there is no fleet mechanic. You will want to move your crew to the ship you are currently using.

After you buy another ship, is there a way to send out your other ship with an experienced crew to make money or salvage stuff?

no.

 

deadfire player ships are, by design, a money sink.  sure, you will be able to acquire funds through acts o' piracy, but maintaining a ship and crew and purchasing new ships and ship upgrades is intended to suck money.  you cannot turn deadfire ships into a revenue generating endeavor save for through most careful resource management and likely a bit o' metagame knowledge... and even then, the effort won't be worth the payoff.  

 

"i played poe for 80 hours and ended up with 600,000 cp. there was nothing worth buying with all that money.  obsidian sucks." 

 

saw many variations o' the 'bove complaint.  

 

so, no, you cannot send out idle ships forth to challenge hic sunt dracones, 'cause such would defeat the point o' deadfire ships.  money sink, not well.

 

the feature might need tuning as ship combat is a bit too easy a method for overgearing early in the game.  even so, we applaud obsidian for getting on board, so to speak, with the notion o' player strongholds as a money sink.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

There is an achievement for buying all the ships though.  Consider I own the most expensive ship, fully loaded with the most expensive guns, and the most expensive upgrades.... and I still have over 90k copper... you can afford to waste a little