I'm gonna go with "logical" here:

Head toward the midsection of their ship's bottom, since the ballast is falling from the sides. In the meantime, scream like little children and feign the ship getting torn apart.

If you're dropping ballast, it'll make the ship rise. Ballast is dead weight. Either way, if it seems like that's the case, this ship is fast and should, indeed, be able make a last-minute dash to another side of the dreadnought.

Aye, ballasts are like anchors in appearance. But anchors don't work by weighing down the ship, since that weight it always on the ship, instead they work by providing resistance against the ship's movement via water or land if they are deep enough to reach the bottom. Airships aren't able to get the same affect, since air pressure isn't as resistant as water and they're likely not close enough to the ground to reach it. Instead heavy weights will work like ballasts, or balancing effects to keep them at a particular desired height. Divers and submersibles will use similar weights for similar reasons. And when they are dropped, or disconnected, those objects will lose weight and rise into the air. The same thing would happen to a boat if you cut its anchor loose, but since it's already balanced atop the water's surface the affect of losing that weight won't be as apparent.

This isn't to 'correct' you or anything, just friendly information for you and anybody else that may have been confused. There's no harm in not knowing the intricacies of hot air balloon mechanics. ^^

I must confess the order to 'drop ballast' still confuses me. What are those things being dropped? For comparison, airship designs used in the 1910s and 20s tended to use water as ballast, so I'm not sure what's going on in that part of the animation. Nothing seems to be dropping from the hull completely. For a moment I wondered if it was some kind of aerial anchoring system, but since the ship's movement appears to be primarily controlled by the sail, that doesn't seem likely. I can also see my usual method of frame-by-frame analysis might be trickier now with the animation. Details like the Summit frigate's figurehead flick past so quickly it takes several viewings to get it. Of course that's my problem, not yours. XD

In terms of taking a course of action, Samanthaweltzin's proposition seems sound. Hiding under the keel and playing dead might work, provided there is no way for the frigate's crew to see directly under the vessel. I would find it curious though that this would be the case. Ship-shaped though these aircraft are, they must surely anticipate enemy attacks from above and below. In fact, this leads me to speculate about some design differences these frigates would have compared to their nautical counterparts. For instance, I think that placing the ship's magazine at the bottom of the hull, whilst safer on a seagoing vessel, would be vulnerable on this frigate. One could easily imagine a ship-mounted mortar being fired from beneath and lobbing a bomb into the magazine. I suppose the magazine must be located in a more central position.

So, I would recommend against any attack plans at this time, and concur with Samantha's suggestion. How the pirates would escape if the ruse is successful is another matter entirely, but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The ballasts on these airships better resemble anchors. I wish I could say that's because water and sand are rare materials on Areth, but honestly I just didn't know that fact about water ballasts in the early 20th Century. The implication here is that those weights are going to be cut free from the Frigate and dropped towards the Fancy Yarn, however I might have thrown you guys off by lingering on the suspense of them dangling precariously for a tad bit too long.

I was also thinking about uploading these as individual frames, for people that want to study the images closer or are simply unable to view .gifs, but I decided against it because I don't want to annoy my watchers with too many repeat uploads. If I get enough support for this, however, I may be able to do that in scraps or something.

Make kitty slide down to the edge of the sail and grab it, pulling mass center to the side and forcing ship to turn rapidly, away from the incoming attack. Yay! =^.^=

Make them all get eaten!

Ah, the Cat Food strategy. Very nice.

Turn the ship around and flee in the opposite direction. Since you're underneath them they won't see which direction you're facing.

If that's possible then I vote for this idea.

Shit their pants then steer left. Worked for Columbus!

Drop Ballast in return and roll under, giving them a broadsides to their bottoms!

Quite the nice new reboot, this is epic!

Glad to see you approve!