First Mate’s Solution To Everything Battening Down The Hatches

INDIAN OCEAN—Stressing that the seafaring officer often failed to consider the full gamut of countermeasures, sources aboard the HMS Alcott confirmed Thursday that first mate Langston Bridges’ solution to everything seemed to be battening down the hatches. “With all due respect to the first mate, half of our crew is suffering from scurvy and his suggestion to batten down the hatches isn’t going to help with that,” said shipmate Frederick Quigley Taylor, noting that this added to a growing list of problems that the naval officer would immediately respond to with a call to batten down the hatches, including the depleted food stores, generally low morale, and the captain’s daughter dying of typhoid. “Sometimes I won’t even get halfway through explaining what’s gone wrong and suddenly he’s loudly shouting to the whole crew that we need to ‘Batten down the hatches, post-haste!’ What the hell is that? It’s like he thinks that by controlling the hatches, he can control his life. Meanwhile, the second mate acts like he can solve everything by raising the mainsail. Fine advice in some situations, but if I’m asking him about my wife’s infidelity, that’s pretty useless.” At press time, Taylor confirmed that the hatches were really too battened down, if anything.