Great - now my crew want to be captains too : /

I only sail with one other person. Luckily neither of us care for leadership. But I will usually take charge as I am more experienced and he doesn't mind doing whatever needs doing.

We usually play on a sloop, so he will be responsible for the lower deck (cooking, charting course, navigation, etc) I'm responsible for the upper deck (steering, sails, cannons) but these aren't set roles, if he wants to grab the wheel he can.

Sometimes it's good to do a bit of role reversal and if you're the most experienced, it's good to take a step back and let your crew learn by doing. You want crewmates that can do everything (at least I do)

For the first few times we set sail, I sat back and let him learn, only stepping in when I needed to. I wish he had his own captained ship at this time as this probably would have made him care more about the ship. Multiple things can go wrong on the ship, you can get knocked off, you can die, you can disconnect, etc. In times like that, it's useful to have someone who can take over.

I don't believe in one person being the captain and that's it for the rest of time. I like being the Captain and I am often the Captain. But I also don't mind taking a step back, letting someone else be captain.

@skal-e-waag 2nd mate said “that sounds like a great idea”

I said, in my head, I know, that’s why I’m Cap’in ;p

FINAL UPDATE:

1st mate was up for rotating ships and altogether more into just using their ship sometimes than overall progression. He wasn't into making a Galleon though and our 2nd mate didn't have one ready so they said I should use mine for tonight's session - our first since this thread started.
I asked who wanted to get us underway and me main mate said unless I thought we should change order, I should.
(To his credit, in our crew text leading up to last night, he was very forthcoming with appreciation and said he didn't want our dynamic and roles to change either so I guess I get the only thing I really cared about - acknowledged leadership of our crew and continuity of game/roleplay dynamics -and they get their own ship to sail in our armada (hat tip to @grog-minto for the fleet idea) )

That settled, everyone called out their stations (which I tried implementing a while ago but have been lax on most of the time) from which we'd still rotate from each hour. (I got the feeling that they had the feeling if anyone was going to take a break from our crew, it might be me. I suppose if this went sideways, it well could have come up but thankfully the faith I had in these 2 wasn't misplaced.)

We agreed to start with the Hunter's Cry (which was a blessing for its non-progression-related neutrality) - raised a grog, anchor, and shanty and we were underway.
After that we just did what we've been doing lately - a Veil fort takedown, which our 2nd mate's rotation usually has helming. Then the lvl 5 emissary quests. As a bonus, as my shift came around, I called up our 11 year old green horn/powerlvld PL and gave him his first shift behind the helm instead. He was stoked as was his dad - so everyone's happy - hoorahz!

Thanks again to everyone-

See you on the seas,

~Skal E Waag
Captain of the Goon Dock Saint
(Points to anyone that can sort out that portmanteau. Hint is in this pic. Goon Dock Saint was deemed "unsuitable" by the naming filter but the placeholder backup name includes 2 of those words. Apparently you can't rhyme with Chalk..)

@skal-e-waag

Late stage capitalism spoken like a true facist. 😆

I am judging you a teensy bit less than it sounds like.

Remember this is a game and you aint a captain who rules over your friends... just play a day in eachother ships.