The most ideal situation was to take 3 ships over the next 3 years, equaling 9 ships total. However, it did not work out that way due to guys getting suspended, kicked out and/or transferring unexpectedly (Blue, Figs, Olsen most notably)...
From my understanding, we can not use all 9 in one year. Therefore, if we had 75 players in 2014, 7 ships must have went towards our probation and 3 were just unused, but available. As long as we take at least 1 ship away for next 2 seasons (2015, 2016) we would have served our probation. So in 2015 and 2016, we could have a total of 84 players with ships. 2017 is the "cloud free" year where we could have 85 total players.