All of this nonsense, all of this BS could've been avoided had the CO of the HMS Cornball simply been a Man and opened fire.
Tedious.
He wasn't given permission to fire from his chain of command, going all the way up.
In earlier times, ship captians had the freedom to make such decisions on their own, but modern communications put an end to that. Now they have to call home to daddy to get permission to fight for their own men.