That was me. 
And my jaw dropped when I read your post about how Jesse was still alive. I’m so glad you did that!!
So be it. Check out the thread “Finish the wooden-navy story - A Raking Broadside”. Q&As in this thread if needed. See you in English Harbour!
Oh boy, I foresee me making some huge military blunders in this story. But, I will hop in, and you guys please take liberty in correcting my boo-boos.
What** ivylass** said! But I’ll do my best.
Just one minor point so far, ivylass - a Captain ought previously to have been a lieutenant, and prior to that a midshipman, passing examinations for his junior commission and subsequently promoted at the discretion of his senior officers. So I’m forced to conclude that Admiral Strachan has pulled a fast one, and I’ve covered this in my latest addition 
Some notes:
The Hector is a frigate, a three-masted square-rigged ship carrying 32 guns: twelve 12-pounders each side on the gun-deck and six 6-pounders each side on the upper deck. She also mounts four 12-pound carronades on the quarterdeck - these are short-barrelled and short-ranged artillery that usually fire grape shot, which is a purely anti-personnel load and very unpleasant (think: giant shotgun). By custom, the carronades aren’t counted in the ship’s tally of guns, which is why she’s called a 32-gun frigate and not a 36. One gun each side can be repositioned as a forward-firing “bow-chaser” but ordinarily the ship cannot fire other than to each side.
A frigate can stand up to another frigate of similar size and armament and beats any smaller vessel handily, though some smaller craft with fore-and-aft rigging (like a modern yacht) are faster than her at sailing into wind and so are hard to catch. Against a ship of the line - in essence, a battleship - a frigate is hopelessly outclassed in a fair fight. The bigger ship will have more guns, most of them 24-pounders and some 32-pounders, and is faster into the bargain; though heavier, she will have more sail and a longer waterline.
The ship’s officers are captain, four lieutenants numbered in order of seniority, and an assortment of boatswains (bosuns), coxswains (cox’ns), and their various mates. The ship’s Master is a warrant officer. He is the one who does most of the actual sailing and navigation. Midshipmen are boys and young men from thirteen upwards, learning their trade in preparation for taking exams at age 20 to become lieutenants. There is also a Marine lieutenant to command a 30-man platoon.
Each gun is served by four men who must sponge out, load, ram, run the gun out, cock the flint lock, train and fire. Like most RN ships, the Hector does not carry enough crew to serve all its guns at once, but only enough to operate either the starboard (right side) or port (also called larboard) guns.
Each mast (fore, main and mizzen) carries a “course”, “topsail” and “topgallant” (“t’gallant”). A bigger ship might carry a fourth tier of sails, the “royals”. The courses are usually furled or “clewed up” during action both to reduce the risk of fire and to make the ship easier to handle. If the wind is not too strong and the ship needs more speed she can set “stunsails” (actually “studding sails”, but never called that in practice) on short yards temporarily fitted to the permanent yards.
More on request…
I have an idea but first I need to know what year it is, at least if it’s prior to 1692 or not.
No, we’re looking at the Napoleonic era, circa 1801 - but what was the idea?
(Btw my addition sucked in my previous post, that should be four six-pounders to a side.)
I was going to introduce a privateer element but we’re about a century late for that.
Oh, wait, “renegade frigate” you say? Hmm…
glee, I hope you read this. I didn’t want to post in the story thread itself. Please, you may think you are being humorous, but you are breaking up the flow of the new story. It’s in it’s infancy, and your comments are out of place.
You are free to be a participant in the story if you wish, anyone serious about it is. but your so-called ending was a silly joke. Please don’t mess it up.
So, are we to consider this the control thread for the naval story?
I believe so, see post #22.
Yes, I’ll confirm that. It seemed a waste to start up yet another thread. Hopefully those who need to know will peep in here some time.
I have no problem with Stachan pulling a fast one. So, there’s a renegade ship out there? Is it captained by the Dread Pirate Roberts? 
Thanks for confirmation of the era. I wasn’t sure what year it was, but it makes sense that it’s before the War of 1812 if they’re pressing Americans into service.
Why is it, every thread we do like this, we get some numbnuts who comes in with “And they all got run over by a truck, the end.” Although, Malacandra, I loved your chess analogy.
Oh, I meant to add that I had no idea what rank the young man rowing up in the longboat was supposed to be. I didn’t know he was the new captain.
Wish I had thought of that. I made him “Richards”.
Sorry. The references were there in the OP, though you’d have to know what being “made post” meant. (It means becoming a Captain with a high C as distinct from a lower-ranking officer in command of a --smaller-- ship. Btw a “Master And Commander” would be in charge of a very small ship indeed.)
I’d quite like to make this and the renegade frigate tie up into a key plot element. I have some ideas if anyone’s interested. It doesn’t mean there can’t be any number of subplots going on, of course.
Send me those ideas by email!!!
For those interested in participating in the naval story I found a good link. You may want to check it out.