The new officers aren't too bad, they're easily whipped into shape within a few weeks, two months or so, at most. But it seems that when they get older, become more experienced, they think that they can simply disregard half of the regulations and re-write them at will!
Just last week, I had one of the men try to find a loophole in the code about extended shore leave and extenuating circumstances. Trying to tell me that he was delayed returning to the ship with cargo due to having lost the directions. I told him that he had been seen chatting up a 'lady' outside one of the more notorious pubs for quite some time to which he replied 'she was just sending me in the right direction'.
"Down into her bloomers?" I replied. He couldn't hide the grin that swept across his face and he tried to quote the book to me! To ME! His superior! Trying to tell me that the rules stated that so long as he made it back to the ship with the cargo before we set sail again that he was perfectly within his bounds, especially since he had had some trouble. To which I countered "Well, even the best sometimes have trouble in their breeches, don't they?" After the snickers from the rest of the crew had subsided, he tried to tell me again that it didn't matter how he went about GETTING the proper directions, just that he got them and got back in time before the ship was off.
"I'm very certain that that is NOT in the regulations, but should a magical little sea nymph come and change that, I'll be sure to let you know. Be assured that if the matter is pursued further, you shall be duly reprimanded by the Commodore after I have given him a full briefing. A night in the Cells should suffice, don't you think?" Was all I said to him before I walked off.
Honestly, the nerve of some of them, I think I shall have the commodore petition the king about tightening the reigns on some of them. I would like to tighten a noose around their necks, sometimes, and hang them with the filthy pirates they often resemble.