I suggest what already mentioned before..
The player credited the kill, gets the right to loot, if he leave the battle or die the loot is free to take for everyone.
Theres one more important thing worth to mention here!
I played many MMO including POTBS and EVE-online, all had their own rules for looting and worked great in that environment, but its whole different in NA.
Its very hard (if not impossible) to get loot in time with anything bigger than a 5th rate, especially in pvp or large AI battles where you go up against multiple opponents.
Basically you have to plan your whole tactics around looting if you want to get anything from the sinking wrecks and i think thats a bad game design.
My suggestion is to make looting easier, increase the range of looting to 100m+ or anything works and remove the speed restriction.
I know its not realistic but its don't have to be anyways, the gameplay is much more important in this case.
This will resolve all the problems with looting, no more wasting of 10 minutes sailing around to grab the loot if you even have a chance before all wrecks sunk and you can get your well deserved reward for your efforts (if you can take it home).