Way back when you had very few professional sailors. Most sailors were “recruited” in various ways. One way was to get someone drunk and have them wake up onboard a ship. The easiest way was too just jump a guy and drag him aboard. That was Captain Windsor’s method. He didn’t believe in being subtle.

“OK, scum, listen to me. You’re here, you’re staying here and that’s that. Bitch enough and you get twenty lashes. You get twenty one way or another, no matter whether you bitch or not. Bitch, and I count differently.”

The First Mate was Mr. Richards. He, like all sailors, had a nickname. Two of them. One was “Tattoo Dick”. His entire body was covered with tattoos. His other nickname was “Rum Rick”. He drank all the time. His liver was the size of a watermelon. Everytime he got roaring drunk he got a new tattoo and he got roaring drunk a lot.

“Food. You get what I give you. The first few days it won’t matter. You are going to throw it back up so I’ll give you the stuff leftover from my last voyage. It’s real ripe now. If you see anything floating forget it and eat it. If it’s still moving scoop it out and then eat it.”

The cook was one disgusting human being. He’d eat anything and thought everyone else would. He’d wipe the sweat off his brow and flick it into the slop he was cooking. He called it his, “secret ingredient.”

“Women. There won’t be any. Not for you. Me, oh yea. You, nothing.”

The Captain had his wife and his mistress onboard. Keeping them separate on a sixty foot boat was a feat of magic. His biggest worry was seeing a tattoo on his mistress...or his wife.

“Rum. Lots of rum. It’s bad rum but the whiskey is for me.”

Suited Mr. Richards just fine. He didn’t care what it was as long as he could get drunk on it. Ferment an onion and he’d be satisfied.

“If you’re afraid of heights then be very scared. See those sails up there? They don’t open by themselves. Someone has to climb up there and do it. Guess who it won’t be.”

The ship’s master was afraid of heights. He got by telling the Captain that he could oversee the sails better from the deck. No way he was going up there. The going up didn’t bother him. It was the possibility of falling down that got to him.

“There are three classes of people on this ship. Me, the officers, and you, the scum. I can hang you, shoot you, whip you, keelhaul you, anything I want. You look cross-eyed at me and I can kill you. You could mutiny. The penalty for that is hanging. You lose no matter what.”