I myself love to add a touch of mundane,my shipyard games are played with a circle of our extra ships surrounding play with a shopkeep token placed in between 2 ships the two ships on either side of it are for sale when 1 ship is purchased its moved onto the board and now another ship would be up for sale.
Interesting, that reminds me of my harbor system from a while back when I had unbought ships on the deckplate docks of harbors in big games/scenarios. Example picture