Aboard the Free Vote, a pirate ship run as a floating democracy, the crew elects a new captain every dawn with shells in a barrel. This morning the cheeky deck swab Kit Mallory wins by a single shell, and the smooth quartermaster hands him an impossible charter: a feast for the crew and silver in the empty share chest by sundown, or the ship gets a Captain for Life. A swashbuckling comedy of parrots, haunted rocks, sea chases and one very suspicious election.