You got stuck with a submarine officer. The mistake many make, apparently including the writers of this manual, is to assume that there is any monolithic culture in the Navy. Subs, SWOs, aviators of the many flavors, SEALs, and all the rear-echelon branches, all have different characters, strengths, and weaknesses. Sub officers tend to be overly by-the-book, because they all went to nuke power school.

In all seriousness, if an Army SF type were unnecessarily phrasing a mission in nautical/sea-going/boat terms to me (a naval aviator) he would get a raised eyebrow to start, and things would deteriorate quickly if he kept treating me like a book stereotype.