These policies are explained in greater detail below. If you have questions about any of these policies, please feel free to ask an instructor.

1. Write a voyage log for every voyage you command.

Whenever you sail as the commanding officer, you must write a log in the voyage log tool. If you are an OiT and the voyage is supervised but you are in command, it is your responsibility, not the instructor's, to write the log. (If you do not have access to the tool, or do not understand how to use it, ask an instructor.)

2. Do not abandon your command mid-voyage.

If you know that you can't spend enough time online to complete a voyage (you'll usually want to allocate an hour for a round trip), don't take a ship out as its commander unless someone else agrees to take over for you when you leave.

3. Return the ship to home port.

All ships have a home port. At the end of every voyage, return the ship to its home port, unless specifically instructed to do otherwise. That way, people know where to find it. Do not, under any circumstances, strand a ship at an uncolonized island; if you are forced to do so due to a server restart or the like, ask an OceanMaster to whisk you back to the ship afterwards so you can sail it home.

4. Re-supply the ship and leave it in good condition.

Leave ships in good condition, with little or no damage or bilge. You should try to have one 10-unit order of rum and one 10-unit order of cannonballs available at all times, so you can re-supply the ship upon returning to home port. Use the crew cut to place new orders; try to keep rum and shot on a sloop to between 10 and 25 units, or between 15 and 30 units on a cutter.

5. Bank crew cut remainders, or give them to a senior officer.

After re-supply, take the remainder of the crew cut and give it to a senior officer, or bank it until you can catch a senior officer online. The crew cut is crew money; it's not for your personal use. Do not leave money in the hold of a ship.

6. Be generous when you divvy.

The default shares are based on the number of battles fought by each mate. You should adjust these to reflect the amount of time that a mate has been sailing, too; someone that stuck with you for the 30 minutes that you couldn't find a target should still be well-compensated for his time.

You should also split the profits of foraging and trading with the crew that helped you get it. You can do this by selling the commodities at the hold, taking out the money received, putting it in the booty chest, and then divvying.

7. Commodities trading should benefit our flag.

The Rudder Revolution owns Unbeweavable on Epsilon. That should be your first choice for commodity sales. We are stockpiling the various commodities that we will need to colonize our own island. Once we have an island, that will be the place where you should sell your commodities.

8. OiTs should command whenever they can.

OiTs need practice being in command. If you're a Midshipman, and an instructor is in command of a boat, ask them in /tell whether you could take over command at some point in time. If you're a Midshipman, ask if someone would be willing to supervise a run for you. If you're a Navigator, take out boats as often as you can. Remember that if there are ten people online, it'd be much better to have two sloop crews of five than one cutter crew of ten -- hire jobbers to fill up your numbers if you want more people.

9. Be courteous when you're not the commander.

When you come aboard a ship that someone else is commanding, you're just another mate. Don't try to take over. Do volunteer to assist in whatever way you can, though. If you're an OiT, feel free to ask if you can navigate or target, though.

10. Keep arguments private.

If you have a serious disagreement with another officer, please settle it in privately, not publicly -- i.e., use a chat circle or /tell, not a channel. This will help keep the peace between crewmates. If you need assistance in settling disputes, please ask a senior officer.

11. Treat ships and maps as crew resources.

If you personally purchase and hold the deed to a ship, it will be treated just like ships owned by the crew; anyone can sail it, and it will be supplied with rum and shot when necessary. It may be stocked with maps, but if you leave the crew, you won't be allowed to take those maps with you. If you buy your own maps and want to keep them, please leave them in your inventory. When you pillage a map, it is left on the navigation table. The senior officers will periodically try to optimize the map distribution between all ships. If there's a particular ship you'd like a map to be at, please ask a senior officer to move it.

12. Don't steal from the crew.

This covers a wide range of behaviors and should be self-evident, but just in case it isn't, here it is: Steal from us, and not only will we kick you out of the crew and flag, but we will make a strong case to the Ringers to have you banned from the game, as well.

The behaviors that will be considered theft include selling off rum and shot from the ships and pocketing the money, failing to report and turn over crew cuts, and increasing your own divvy shares up to unreasonable levels.