Executive officer

There is no official rank of commanding officer within a crew, and no official duty station or indicator to show who is in charge. Each and every officer (and above) can take any officerly action on a ship at any time.

However, it is a common convention within the YPP Community for each voyage on the high seas to have a designated commanding officer (CO) - sometimes referred to as the "officer in charge" (OIC) - for that voyage.

Sometimes one mate will set out on a voyage and run into Real Life troubles, and be forced to log out quickly or otherwise become distracted. Having a commanding officer can avoid the complete failure of a voyage in such circumstances. (If you have ever found yourself on a boat at sea and there is no officer aboard, you can fully appreciate why it is a good idea to give someone that job).

The commanding officer has no official responsibilities, and their exact form differs from crew to crew, but the basics are that the CO:

• assigns crewmates to stations (such as gunnery and navigation)
• checks that stations are well-manned
• handles the posting of jobber invitations
• decides who to hire and who to plank
• stay until the end of the trip
• divvies the booty

Sometimes COs will take several tasks on, such as doing a duty station at the same time, as well as battle navigating the boat and possibly loading the guns.