[Isis]

I'm going to have to come back and read this again to see what the ship is a symbol for, because I don't get it at the moment. Maybe it resembles some country in the world today?

As for the actual writing, I think you should try, at least in part, thinking in scenes. The show, don't tell rule goes big here. There were a few points - the storm, for instance, and some places where Baker and the Captain crossed paths - that could have been extended and described in more detail. Maybe giving a more accurate representation of the ship in the beginning...mention some smaller details, maybe how Baker views the ship, then get into the fact that the ropes are worthless and the whole thing is held together by spit and prayers. While you get the point across as you have it, the narrative doesn't have the life that it could have. You can do it, you just need to approach some parts of the story differently.

You could show a scene that's more pulled out and then do the sort of compact narrative that you have in the rest of the peice to tie your large scenes and patches of description together.

I really like the dialect and the diary entries. That definately gave the story flavor.