If you don't care for the bureaucrazy, politics, requirements, etc, etc of virtual navies then you could try the solution I'm trying to set up.
First, get xfire - xfire.com
Then, see
http://www.xfire.com/clans/dwaters/
if you log in to the site with your xfire user/pass, you can apply to join, and as soon as I have found it (I'm not really checking regularly, though), all members will appear in a group in xfire. When any of them are online, they appear as such, and you could ask if they're interested in a game.
Totally without the hassle.
The selling point of xfire is that for many games (DW is not one of them, though; I suspect its because the interface is drawn in a way that conflicts with how xfire does it) you can see the message you received, and even reply, without leaving the game. It also has group chats, and you can click a 'join teamspeak' button just like that; or use the integrated voice chat. (Which I haven't tried, btw)
But the (still beta, though) clans&guilds feature I'm mentioning above, is pretty much a killer app as far as I'm concerned. I still remember the hassle called friend list maintenance from when I was in a fleet. This centralizes and minimizes that problem.
There are two things xfire doesn't have: All your friends that do not use xfire*, and video chat. Oh, and I guess I can add those small games of MSN/live messenger to that list.
* There is a msn 'proxy' application at xfireplus.com - but I had some serious trouble with it probably related to national characters. æøåÆØÅ