Second In Command: The Three Imperatives

A maritime adventure set in the late 1700's that challenges the captain and Second In Command navigator to rely on the three imperatives of Knowledge, Experience and Discipline as they encoiunter the dangers of privateers and storms on the high seas.

The story’s time frame is set in the late 1700’s, nearing the end of the region’s Spanish monopoly on trade with increased competition for dominance among France, England and the Dutch. The time was wrought with complex and multiple world conflicts among the various and dominant world powers of the time. The American colonists had declared their independence from England. In support, and for self interests, other countries including Spain (with troops and supplies from Cuba and Puerto Rico) and France provided aid and logistics to the American colonists in their fight for independence. The political and economic strife in France had positioned it for upheaval and revolution. While the Spanish monarchy had declared the “Americas” to be free and open to trade by all nations and the Caribbean Sea as well as the Atlantic sea routes had become a competitive arena among the major world powers of the time striving for dominance and economic opportunity. The story is presented in third person narrative form as it was the author’s intent to also incorporate historical facts of the time into the sequence of events, and sailors in particular may empathize as it utilizes many nautical terms and tactics in depicting many of the events at sea. In light of such, the various nautical terms and maneuvers that are introduced throughout are clarified in the appendices as an aid to readers not familiar with the tactics of sailing. It is the author’s hope that sailors and non sailors alike will find the incorporation of historical facts of the era with plausible fictional events a pleasant reading experience.

DR. PAUL A. RIVERA is Executive Director, of PAR Enterprises, Inc. - a Stamford based Human Resources/Benefits /Insurance Consulting Practice, Licensed in CT, NY and FL. He received his Doctorate in Finance from Pace University, an MBA, cum laude, from Pace and an Electrical/Computer Engineering Degree from Manhattan College. He retired in the mid 1990’s with over 30 plus years in corporate management responsibilities with Fortune 50 companies and continues to lecture as a professor at Fairfield University, Sacred Heart University and Pace University. In that regard he has written other Business related works. As an avid sailor since the 1970’s he has skippered sailing sloops in the North East Coastal waters, the Florida Inter-coastal waterway and the Caribbean sea. As a cruise passenger he also has enjoyed sailing the Mediterranean, the South Pacific and the Gulf Stream along the Atlantic Coast - all of which would have been sea routes traveled by sailors of the story’s era. Therefore, in this fictional maritime adventure which also encompasses historical events of the time, Dr. Rivera relates the eventful voyage of merchant sailors making a passage from the Caribbean to Spain during the late 1700’s.