Posted by Lionel Hill on March 29, 2001 at 13:17:15 from 203.34.252.210:
In Reply to: Names of ships, ranks of office posted by Bethany Nicholson on March 28, 2001 at 21:51:04:
Bethany, I found that a very pleasant and painless way to understand the subtleties of naval ranks and ship's descriptions was to read Patrick O'Brians series about the Royal Navy circa 1800-1820. I used to think that a ship had to have so many masts and this or that sort of sails. This is true up to a point but it appears that if someone of certain rank was in charge of a canoe it immediately became a ship, no matter if it was really a barque, sloop or frigate in terms of rigging. Similarly, anyone above rank of Commander who was in charge of a certain sort of "ship" was accorded the courtesy title of Captain even if he was really a Commander and not a Post Captain. Great fun.