I am not sure all captains are lords, or even thought of as such. Indeed, most captains will be knights, as will be all the officers.
The captain, usually, is not the owner of the ship, just the man (or woman) appointed to command it. But who owns ships?
Knights are the epitome of loyalty, and the natural leaders in time of trouble, not deigning to soil their hands with work. In normal sailing, the Mate (farmer caste) handles most of the order giving.
It is also important to differentiate Pilot (or Navigator) and helmsman. The helmsman will be a favoured sailor, but farmer caste. The Pilot, however, is usually the person in charge of Opening the Seas (although the mate, and sometimes an officer, will do in a pinch), predicting and limitedly controlling the weather, magically reinforcing or repairing the ship (with some sailor assistants), and general spellcraft and navigation. In Glorantha, magic is a necessity. And with the limited magic available to sailors, you need a specialist aboard a ship. In a big ship, with assistants.
So we have the well dressed officers who stroll the decks doing nothing but give orders, the Mate, who knows he will get no higher, but who is the most important person aboard, and the Chaplain and his acolytes, responsible of (literally) appeasing the Sea, or Felstra in the Felster lake. And the crew, working hard, flogged often, and forced to fight when necessary.
Certainly Rhum (there is still technology all around the West), Sodomy (with the usual western chauvinism, specially in Tanisor, Nolos and Pasos, there will be only men aboard, so...) and the Lash (pain purifies the sins). Some things are always the same.
In Loskalm a wizard commands the ship, after a stint as a knight officer and a time at the Naval Academy learning ship magics. Loskalmi ships will have less people capable of Opening the Seas, so they are more vulnerable. That is how the Ygg Islander's managed to beat them the first time. Kill the wizard and run. The Sea will take them.
The Caste society does not mean that all Lords are higher than all wizards, who are higher than all knights. Knights and wizards are parallel, so their rank depends on the particular case, and who they own loyalty to.
In my kustrian campaign, the second most powerful person in the kingdom is a knight, the Lord Protector. He answers only to the king, and he can order the death or imprisonment of anybody in the kingdom. He cannot own land or troops, his sons are common knights patrolling the border, his daughters, married to well placed knights and a minor Lord, thanks to the King's dowrys (but for one, a mercenary leader in Estal, and her father's pride and embarrassment). But he is the most feared man, not for his personal abilities, but for those he commands.
The third power is the Bishop of Kustria, a rokari.
In the West, a 90% of people are Farmers, and the remaining 10% is split between wizards and Knights (depending on country and religion). Lords are a mere fraction of a percentage. Make knights other things than killing machines: ship captains, explorers, judges, sheriffs, detectives, diplomats (few). Not all wizard caste are religious: medics, accountants, tax men, scribes, alchemists, enchanters, diplomats.
The West has the variety you inject in it. Nothing more, nothing less.
Jose
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