Talk:Post-Captain

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It says:

(from 1794; before that it was possible to become post as a Lieutenant and commander was an informal rank)

If laws changed in 1794, they did not change throughout the whole universe, but rather in one country. Which one? Michael Hardy 22:39, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

This is strictly Royal Navy. I was considering merging this material into Captain actually, since it's a single-country variant on the basic concept. Stan 22:59, 2 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I removed the sentence in question. Sorry, I checked the history, to see who added it. And I saw that it was a contributor identified only by an IP address. Normally I would write the author of something I regarded as incorrect rather than merely change it. It is possible that what that original contributor meant was that it was possible for a lieutenant to be promoted directly to Post-Captain, without ever having served as a Commander. But if this was what they meant, they were incorrect. Lieutenants were promoted directly to Post-Captain in exceptional circumstances both before and after 1794. I am skeptical that commander was an informal rank in 1794.

There are other aspects of this article that I think are questionable. Using nautical fiction as an authoritative source of information is a mistake.

This article, and many other wikipedia articles that deal with the Royal Navy, make the mistake of refering to all Post-ships, that were not Ships-of-the-line as frigates. This is a mistake. Frigates were ships which nominally, had a single gun deck, but had a raised forecastle and quarterdeck. Some junior Post-Captains commanded flush-decked, ship-rigged sloops. -- Geo Swan 02:13, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Becoming a post-captain might have had something to do with being listed as such in the Naval Gazette

Or at least that was implied in the Horatio Hornblower novels. BTW: Hornblower's first command as a post-captain was a sloop. Will (Talk - contribs) 04:18, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

• Becoming a post captain was down to a mixture of notority, good luck, success and nepotism, not necessarily in that order. Being listed in the Naval Gazette was just one of the ways to gain the first of these requirements, but was far from the only method of reaching the rank of Post Captain. Once an officer was "posted" his promotion would be mentioned in the Naval Gazette, but appearing in that journal was far from an essential part of becoming a captain. As said above, basing real facts on (admittedly very well researched) historical fiction will inevitably result in mistakes or misunderstandings.--Jackyd101 02:07, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

I was talking about where the term "Post-Captain" came from. You get "posted" when you get promoted. Will (Talk - contribs) 12:13, 11 October 2006 (UTC)