1804

Well shiver me timbers maties, I am sailing the seven seas again on a high square rig and waiting for the wind to puff up these topsails, and what do I see in the crow's nest, but another square rigger at full speed, a tea clipper. These boyos from the Academie Francaise in Paris under Napoleon never seem to know what is not good for high wind conditions like today. It is almost as if they had not learned from their dreadful results at the Officer School at Brest. The last 3 candidates for the second from top title in the program, the SS Power, the SS Arnold, and the SS McGuckian only scraped passes - probatus, and none of the credits or distinctions of which they boasted they were going to get - probatus, not even been probatus, and not even a magna or a magna cum laude and no summa cum laude in sight, so I am afraid the captains from the Officer School at Brest are not as inspiring as they say they are. A disappointing lot these napoleonic frenchies.