From Cadet to Captain

Forty-two years of merchant service is, among many other things, a slow change of clothes. The cadet wardrobe is half practical, half hopeful. The captain's is mostly ceremonial — and worn far less often than the rest.

In between are the working years: the third officer who lives in his boilersuit, the second who finally orders a properly-cut tropical white, the chief who replaces a single brass button and somehow makes the whole tunic feel new again.

The wardrobe doesn't expand. It refines.