All-women bosses aboard? Historic precedents for Celebrity Cruise's Edge

Some of Celebrity Edge's all-women officers and deck team. Pic: Celebrity Cruises.

Why would a cruise this March be of interest to historians who won't be on it? 

Because - seemingly the first time ever - a ship is sailing with all women officers (in the deck and hotel departments). That's how far we've progressed in a once very misogynistic industry. https://gcaptain.com/celebrity-edge-to-sail-with-first-all-female-bridge-team/

On a Celebrity Cruises ship 26 women officers will sail in Captain Kate McCue’s team  on Celebrity Edge, from March 8-15 2020. https://www.celebritycruises.co.uk/discover-magazine/news-events/international-womens-day/

P&O Cruises almost managed a similar feat, with five women officers on the Pacific Pearl to the South Pacific in 2011. 

Kate (pictured left) is the US’s first cruise ship captain and says 'Excitement does not even begin to describe how I’m feeling about working alongside these incredible, barrier-breaking women ... on this truly historic sailing.'

This significant step really is a very important and inspiring breakthrough. Part of the global campaign to include women on ships, this voyage is a kind of crescendo to the International Maritime Organisation's year of empowering women, 2019. https://www.nautilusint.org/en/news-insight/news/a-year-of-empowering-women-in-maritime/

Celebrity Cruise's part in this long struggle against cultural lack of diversity is that - under Lisa Lutoff-Perla, its path-breaking president and CEO - the company is pushing a Bridge the Gap initiative.

 Working on bridging that gap: Lisa, centre; Kate, second from
right, and other Celebrity officers. Pic: Celebrity Cruises

FORE-SISTERS. LEADING THE WAY? 

Have there ever been all-women-officered trips before, on big ships not just small boats? 

The answer seems to be 'Yes, twice. In 1,500 years: in Denmark and China.' 

And the veracity of those sailing stories seems a bit slippery. It's a good idea to read between the lines.

That's why I'm hoping the Celebrity Edge staff are going to leave much better accounts of their voyage, for posterity's sake.

Here are the two patchy stories of predecessors.

DENMARK c500 AD

In this first story, the doubt is 'Did these events really happen?' Or 'Is the dramatic tale is just a product of a time when historians didn't distinguish between myth and history?' Fake news? Fantasy?

Saxo Grammaticus, artist's impression
by Louis Moe

Saxo Grammaticus's fifteenth-century telling of a fifth-century story, in The Danish History, Vol 4, goes like this: 

Princess Aflhild/Alwilda, the Goth king’s only daughter, had love problems that drove her so mad that she set sail as a pirate.

"Enrolling in her service many maidens who were of the same mind  [wanting to live as shield-maidens in a life without men, she set sail. After a while] 

'she happened to come to a spot where a band of [sea]rovers were lamenting the death of their captain, who had been lost in war; they made her their rover captain for her beauty, and she did deeds beyond the valour of woman.'

So her ship had been a sort of floating and very bustling convent, with Captain Alfhild as a seagoing Mother Superior crossed with a sort of Viking raider.

Then when the male seafarers showed they could accept a woman's authority - if she looked pretty enough -  women and men worked together on board.

Her 'Amazonian' crew would have numbered far less than 100. And they would have been what we'd now call Scandinavians. Celebrity Edge's crew is 1,377-strong and the women officers are of 16 nationalities.

Alfhild's team sailed for months, not seven days. They were in chilly Danish and Finnish waters that were sometimes frozen,not the warm Caribbean. 

The women’s business was raiding coastal communities, not giving 2,918 passengers a very nice time.

The two (royal) shield-maidens, left, were essentially raiders. Focusing on
customer service? I don't think so. Keen on esprit de corps, yes.

And Alfhild's was a small no-frills vessel. By contrast,  'luxury comes as standard' says Celebrity of its most powerful ship. It's so wonderful it even has a Magic Carpet (a grand sort of elevator-cum-mobile conservatory). 

The Danish maid-pirates endured months that probably felt like forever. Celebrity Edge is sailing for just seven days, which will probably feel like not enough. 

Pleasures will include inspirational talks, a  tournament where Fearless Female Officers and guests play sports, plus screenings of iconic movies by female directors.

Captain Alfhild; probably not
mistakable for Captain McCue. 

What happened eventually on Captain Alfhild's un-named ship?

Kismet. After a period of depredation Princess Alfhild (pictured right) came face-to-face with her old beloved, Captain/Prince Alf, sailing on an enemy ship. She somehow dropped her enmity, as did her second-in-command. 

Xenophobia  melted away in a kind of smiley but macho double-date. 

Alf 'took hold of her eagerly, and made her change her man's apparel for a woman's; and afterwards begot on her a daughter, Gurid. Also Borgar wedded the attendant of Alfhild, Groa, and had by her a son, Harald.'

It seems the pirate maidens agreed to swap their oars for kitchen utensils, staying on land while their men returned to sea roving.

Is this a happily-ever-after story, as in post-WW2 movies about women delightedly downing their welding torches in favour of baby's bottles? Or did Alfhild's team realize that their capitulation was a Terrible Glitch in women's progress towards fulfillment in STEM careers? 

We don't know. 

And the whole thing seems very unlikely anyway because how could a group of women and an aristocrat have instantly accrued enough skills to sail a ship? Few, if any, women would have been allowed the opportunity to develop sea skills. (See Jo Stanley, ed, Chapter six, pp78-92, in Bold in her Breeches: Women pirates across the ages.)

So Captain Alfhild probably had little in common with Captain McKue except the ability to lead. 

Indeed, with so few voyages to her CV would Alfhild have even got a Cinderella-type job picking lentils out of the ashes in a Celebrity galley?

CHINA. 1970

As for the all-women-officer team  sailing on the Fengtao in Chinese waters over forty years ago... well, what exactly was that about? Was it just mainly women? 

The difficulty is that the only available translation is incoherent. And the link to the original memo is now broken. (See a fragment of commentary by Minghua Zhao online at Working Paper Series Paper 14 - ORCA - Cardiff University, p10)

Captain Kongqing Fen's Feng Tao. Picture courtesy of
http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=950856

This is what I can piece together from the memo: 

From at least 1976 to 1980 eleven women officers sailed on the Shanghai Ocean Shipping freighter Fengtao. 

Compared to the Celebrity Edge the Fengtao was tiny. It weighed 10,365 tons and was 528 feet long; the Celebrity Edge is over ten times the size: 129,500 tons and is 1,004 feet long.

Captain Kongqing Fen took her ship mainly from Shanghai to Japanese industrial ports including Yokohama and Kobe, as well as Dubai and Hong Kong. She didn't go to lovely resorts. 

Trips were short and repetitive. The team made seventeen voyages in 1978-79, round the Japanese coast.

Fengtao's freight was not, of course, happy holidaymakers sunbathing and splurging freely all over the ship. 

Instead the holds were crammed with cotton when teh ship was outbound, usually. When homeward bound the cargo contained  pipes, groceries, televisions, sugar, and cement.

The eleven women crew, who were assembled especially for this ship, ranged in age from 20 to 42. It seems their roles included accountancy, medical work, marine engineering, and translation. 

Because these were revolutionary times the ship also carried what the Celebity Edge never would: a political commissar. Such people can be seen as a cross between a welfare officer, a public relations expert, and a Master at Arms (security staff). The Fengtao's Yin Lingzhen had formerly been deputy secretary of the CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee.

How did it happen? 

Chinese seawomen had been working coastally and on rivers and docks since at least the 1950s, including with engines. Some had been ABs and greasers. 

Few had crossed oceans but China's revolutionary leaders wanted women to be able to segue into all sorts of non-traditional jobs.  

Doing just three weeks of training in ocean-going skills - on top of their pre-existing coastal skills - doesn't sound like enough. So there must have been some experienced male officers too, surely.  

Certainly we know that the male crew were warm towards the women and keen to help with heavy jobs. Both women and men staged theatricals to entertain each other. 

When abroad the women appeared at many diplomatic events. They were acclaimed as path-breakers.

Why arrange a women-only ship, and at this time, in China?

Possibly it was because of shortages of labour. Maybe it was to create some positive publicity in foreign ports, at a time when women's liberation was just being discussed. 

Celebrity Edge today

Given this sparse record, it's clear that anyone on the Celebrity Edge in March 2020 is going to be sailing in a very different style in the hands of these modern officers. 

This pioneering sort of voyage will become increasingly unremarkable as women take up jobs on ships.

But for now such a women-only experience is something to be valued. 

Finding out more

You can read news interviews with sea women via: https://www.seatrade-cruise.com/downloads/women-seafarer-snapshots

See also The Rise of the female captain at https://www.cruise118.com/advice/rise-of-the-female-captain-how-women-are-leading-the-cruise-industry/

Women doctors on cruise ship assist in rescue of woman overboard

Santa Monica Women Help Life-Saving Rescue At Sea,By Bette Harris. This is a post direct from the Santa Monica Mirror, 2 Dec 2015.

" The quick response of two Santa Monica women aboard a cruise ship, led to the rescue of a passenger, who went overboard into the Mediterranean Sea, off the coast of Italy.

Dr. Sherry Ross (pictured left) and Dr. Peggy Gutierrez (pictured below) witnessed the woman plunge into the water at approximately 1:30 am on Nov. 8, as the ship traveled from Civitavecchia to Portoferraio. They immediately reported the incident to the crew of Windstar Cruise’s Star Breeze, then made every attempt to keep the victim in sight, while calling words of encouragement and keeping the victim engaged.


Details are unclear as to how or why the 43-year-old American passenger went overboard, but once in the water she fought hard to survive, back-floating and shouting for help. The crew activated rescue operations, shooting flares into the sky and tossing into the water a buoy containing a light and GPS feature, although by that time, the victim was no longer in sight.

Apparently, the crew used sophisticated computer calculations and a study of the water’s currents to estimate the coordinates of the victim’s location, as the ship reversed course. After well over an hour, the victim was sighted and pulled from the sea. Calm waters and relatively moderate Mediterranean temperatures were said to be factors in the woman’s survival, in addition to her own will, strength, and endurance.

The Chief Officer told Doctors Ross and Gutierrez that 99 percent of those who fall into the water on a cruise ship are not found alive.

The ship’s crew and passengers praised the heroic actions of the two Westside women, who were the sole witnesses to the accident, and whose immediate and intelligent reaction averted tragedy and saved a life. Both women are also highly regarded in their professional lives.

Dr. Ross has a private medical practice at Providence St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. Dr. Gutierrez is Principal at Locke High School in Los Angeles, serving students in the community of Watts.

As to the rescued passenger’s welfare, the Chief Officer reported that she is doing well and traveling through Europe."

US's first cruise ship captain, Kate McCue

One of the best things about exploring mountains of information about the way women have progressed in maritime history is that I know when feats are mega-feats, par-for-the-course, or odd. Comparisons can be illuminating.

So when today Celebrity Cruises announced their first woman captain, Kate McCue, it's very interesting to see where she fits in two contexts: women cruise ship captains all over the world, and US women captains.

(This information is extracted from my forthcoming history of women at sea:
From Cabin 'Boys' to Captains. It's being published by the History Press, April 2016. There's a whole chapter on women breaking through into deck work, including the first women captains.)



Kate McCue is one of several illustrious women who have finally been allowed to captain huge cruise ships, since 2003. Some cruise ships captained by women are twice the size of hers; many go worldwide, not only the US's east coast, as she will be doing.
She is the successor of women masters who began sailing in the 1830s. Women really broke through in the 1930s in a small way, and then more routinely from the 1970s following anti-discrimination legislation.
The US Navy has been allowing women in command (of small warships) for a decade, so Captain McCue's feat is surprisingly late in US history. However, she has risen to this height relatively quickly, after only fifteen years.

The breakthroughs on cruise ships
2003: Inger Klein Olsen became staff captain on the Seabourn Pride, then took command of the Queen Victoria in 2010, Cunard’s first woman captain.
2007: Karin Stahre Janson (pictured) became Royal Caribbean International’s first woman captain on the Monarch of the Seas and the first woman to command a major cruise ship.

2008: Lis Lauritzen became relief captain on RCI’s Jewel of the Seas followed by command of the Vision of the Seas in 2011.
2010: Sarah Breton became captain on P&O Cruises’ Artemis, followed by command of P&O Cruises Australia’s Pacific Pearl in 2011.
2015: Kate McCue becomes Celebrity Cruises' first woman cruise ship captain, on the Celebrity Summit.






Earlier US women captains
US women were captains from 1887. They included Philomène Daniels, ’the first female steamship captain’ (pictured below) Mary M Miller, and Mary W Coons.

Lots of 'firsts' were claimed, in women's maritime history, I've found. Maybe communications weren't good enough to allow for checking and corroboration.
Possibly the first certificated US captain was was Ivy Wambolt (1910-1976)
Captain Ivy commented to a newspaper that ‘It was natural for me to go to sea … my father and my brothers all went … Following the sea is much more exciting than sitting at a pokey old desk. I get to go places, see things, and know that my ship is my own … I don’t see how it is unusual for a girl to be a captain. It happens to be my job.’
Ivy was followed by Molly Kool in 1939.

Worldwide pioneering woman captains
Worldwide, women have been captains since at least the 1830s. Some weren't certified, because formal qualifications, rather than experience, weren't initially required. The first woman captain on record in Western history is Betsy Miller,(1792-1864). Master of the Cloetus or Cletis, a 197-ton brig taking timber from Ardossan to Belfast, Dublin and Cork, she was from Saltcoats, Ayrshire, in Scotland.
Women in the early days, and they were rare, almost always rose to these heights because their family owned ships and had trained the woman to handle them. The women were known and trusted, and didn't initially do very long voyages.
They often got their opportunity because there was no-one else to help out in a crisis that would otherwise have ruined the family business.

Best person for the job
So Captain McCue is part of a new pattern: women who get their job on merit alone, because they are the best person for the job.
Her story, as it appears in US newspapers this morning, is below:

"MIAMI, July 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- For the first time in the cruise industry – and in Celebrity Cruises' history – an American female will take the helm of a mega-ton cruise ship. At 37 years of age, San Francisco native Kate McCue will command Celebrity Summit– a 91,000-ton, 965-foot ship in the Celebrity Cruises fleet, sailing between the eastern United States and Bermuda. As Captain, she will be responsible for the safe navigation of the ship and the onboard experience of its 2,158 guests and 952 crew members.

Career path
"The modern luxury cruise brand, which operates a fleet of 10 ships, has elevated McCue to the position of Captain based on her 15 years of successful experience and leadership in the maritime industry.
"During her tenure, McCue has managed ship logistics while sailing worldwide itineraries, including Europe, Asia, Australia, the Caribbean, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, and along the Panama Canal.
"Captain McCue has also served as a maritime leader while sailing several transatlantic and repositioning cruises, and played a notable role in the revitalization of ships in Singapore.
"A graduate of California State University's California Maritime Academy, Captain McCue has held a variety of roles in the maritime industry, beginning as a cadet and deck officer, then working through a series of successively more responsible positions to her most recent role as Master Mariner with Royal Caribbean International.
"McCue has earned numerous certifications in a variety of areas pertaining to leadership navigation, ship management and security.

Leading women in Celebrity Cruises
"Continuing Celebrity Cruises' dedication to advancing the role of women in leadership, Kate McCue's appointment follows that of Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, who was named President and CEO of Celebrity Cruises in December 2014.
"From the first time I met Kate, I looked forward to this moment, when I could extend my congratulations to her for being such a dynamic and highly respected leader who will continue to pave the way for women in the maritime industry," said Lutoff-Perlo.
"Of all the great moments throughout my career, this is at the top of my list. I am both honored that Kate accepted this position, and proud of the way our team continues to transform the way people think about Celebrity, and about cruising in general."

How Kate McCue sees it:
"Becoming the first female American captain of a cruise ship has been a goal of mine for as long as I can remember," says McCue. "The honor is amplified by being the first at a company like Celebrity Cruises.
"The cruise industry is ever-evolving, from the ships and the itineraries, to our guests' expectations for vacation experiences. Celebrity has a history of delivering on each of these and I am thrilled to be a part of it.
"I look forward to working with an amazing team and the exceptional leadership who bring the Celebrity Cruises vision to life every day."

McCue will begin her new role on Celebrity Summit in August 2015.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kate-mccue-advances-womens-leadership-in-cruising-as-celebrity-cruises-names-her-the-industrys-first-ever-american-female-captain-300111992.html

Missing –woman crew member, and evidence about her disappearance.

Pic: Rebecca Coriam with parents Anne and Mike

Another woman missing from a cruise ship. Yesterday (11.11.2011) a Guardian journalist reported on what he’d found when he went looking for evidence about Rebecca Coriam, a youth activities worker on the Disney Wonder. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/nov/11/rebecca-coriam-lost-at-sea?newsfeed=true

At least 171 people have disappeared from cruise ships since 2000, but she is Disney's first. Sixteen had vanished this year alone, before Ronson set sail. By the time he got off the ship, the figure had gone up to 19.

Rebecca, an Exeter University sports science graduate from Chester, UK, vanished in March. The formal position is ‘the investigation is ongoing’ – seemingly meaning nothing is happening. Her distraught parents, who believe she was murdered, have created a website; http://www.rebecca-coriam.com.

Rebecca was last seen on CCTV camera looking distraught while taking a mobile call at 6am – and was known to be in a volatile relationship (with another young woman aboard) .

Ronson found the following things that illuminate life on cruise ships today – the non-magical, non-cute, un-Mickey Mouse context for a 'non-stop fun' brand.

• Only one police officer has ever been assigned to investigate Rebecca's disappearance, and did just one day’s on-board investigating.
• There’s official silence and denial, although the crew think something’s up. A waiter tells Ronson, '"It didn't happen. You know that's the answer I have to give.”’ ‘Melissa’, a shipmate, told the reporter that "‘After Rebecca went missing, Disney had a little ceremony. They put flowers at the wall next to the crew pool, "where they think she might have jumped from. But they didn't say. They put these flowers down but refused to answer any questions as to why… Nothing was clear."’
• There are CCTV cameras everywhere. Ronson spotted ‘four CCTV cameras on deck 4 – two on the port side, two on the starboard, evidently capturing every inch of the deck. They're hard to see at first as they're shaped like long tubes and look like some kind of nautical equipment.’ But the company say they have no CCTV footage about her death. When Ronson asks ‘Melissa’ why a shipping line would they suppress such information she replies ‘"To try to protect the brand. If it was 6am and they were doing their job and watching the front, someone must have seen her go over. Or if they didn't, they're covering up why they didn't.”’
• Crew say all phone calls are taped (so knowing about Rebecca’s call might have helped the investigation). But when Ronson asked the company if they had the tape, he was stonewalled:'"That pertains to specific details about the investigation and so it's not appropriate for us to share that kind of information."'
• The crew say life on board is ‘about the show’. Some crew members tell Ronson ‘“All the big smiles and happiness, it's all real. You couldn't act that." And "Disney wouldn't hire you if you weren't that sort of person."’But it’s a very hard job with long on-duty hours – until the kids are in bed, in fact. For background see a blog by former Wonder worker Kim Button: http://allears.net/cruise/issue404.htm. The policy of passengers getting unlimited drinks for one price on Royal Caribbean, and Celebrity, thinks Mike, Rebecca’s dad, adds to the risks of trouble aboard.

Ronson talked to Kendall Carver, who now leads a lobby group called International Cruise Victims, after his daughter died on ship.http://www.internationalcruisevictims.org/.

‘Over the phone, he told me theories of murder, negligence and cover-ups. Sometimes he sounded angry and xenophobic; at other times he was incredibly compelling… It's true that passengers on just one ship – the Carnival Valour – reported nine sexual assaults to the FBI in less than one year.

‘"In other corporations, police get involved," Carver said. "On cruise ships they have, quote, security officers, but they work for the cruise lines. They aren't going to do anything when the lines get sued.”’

Stephen Mosley Rebecca’s MP, who on 1 November raised her case in the House of Commons, said, says Ronson, that Disney was "more interested in getting the ship back to sea than in the case of a missing crew member."' Yes, it would be. Port charges cost a five-figure sum every day.

What this sad story makes clear is how much can happen because these ships are far away and - if under flags of convenience - not much supervised by others. And as the crew are numerous, young, diverse – and not even relatively effectively unionised as in the old days - then anything can happen. It’s so unlike a Disney fairy tale.

The international trade union for crew, Nautilus International, yesterday (vol 44 no 11, p.25, http://www.nautilusint.org/Resources/pages/Telegraph.aspx) wrote that the Coriams have joined the campaign advocating that the UK and EU copy the US Vessel Security and Safety Act 2010. This law applies to all cruiseships carrying over 250 passengers on international voyages that embark or disembark passengers in any US port.
Vessels are required to:
• have visitor identification peepholes on cabin doors
• set the minimum deck rail height at 42 inches
• have information packs on how to report a crime
• have examination kits for alleged rape victims onboard, as well as medication to prevent sexually transmitted diseases
• train medical staff to deal with assaults
• provide confidential access to sexual assault helplines
• keep a log of all shipboard crimes and immediately report serious incidents to the FBI or US Coast Guard
• have at least one crew member certified in maritime crime scene preservation

A woman writer's take on a wartime tanker: MV San Demetrio and F Tennyson Jesse

Woman journalist F Tennyson Jesse created what seems as if it could have been a new genre in writing about a Merchant naval vessel in WW2. The Saga of San Demetrio is about the crew as much as the ship. And it’s got a lyricism that is seldom present in the rare biographies of mariners. Unfortunately, her style wasn’t followed up by many other maritime writers.

I’ve long known that San Demetrio, London
(1943, Dir Charles Frend) was one of the acclaimed WW2 films. It’s unusual because it’s about the Merchant, not Royal, Navy. And it’s about very human people.

But I’d never realised until this week that there was a book of the film. And that it was by a woman. And that it was by the woman who wrote what I think is the very best book about women in WW1. Jesse’s writing style is exceptional for both its realness and its accessibility (critics would say ‘chattiness’).

F Tennyson Jesse went to the Front in France (briefly) in WW1 and wrote about the women there, in The Sword of Deborah, 1918.

I read it last week at the British Library in Boston Spa. It’s my favourite book about women in that war – because it’s so real. It feels like the first time I’ve got a sense of the reality of the lives of those WAACs and VADs, drivers and spud-peelers, clerks and nurses, making their huts cheery with chintz and buttercups, tolerating unequal pay and food.

It’s a pity she didn’t wrote about the ferry trip across the Channel (which was why I was reading it, in search of stories of what women writers and journalists made of the voyage, for that chapter in my forthcoming book on women on the wartime seas).

But the bonus is that through Jesse I discovered a new writer to me, Susannah Clapp. In the London Review of Books Clapp wrote a truly impressive critique review of Jesse’s biography. A Portrait of Fryn: A Biography of F. Tennyson Jesse by Joanna Colenbrander, Deutsch, 1984. You can read the review at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v06/n10/susannah-clapp/you-are-my-hearts-delight

My copy of The Saga of San Demetrio has just arrived in the post from Amazon. It looks like it’s been through a war. Printed by HMSO in 1942 it's an endearingly impoverished-looking waif. Skinny with a maroon and foxed cream cover, the pamphlet has a coffee cup stain on the front. Every page edge is as crisp as toasted popcorn, and as battered as if it's been shoved in a thousand pockets.

Within its pages, Jesse’s writing isn’t as sparkling as her WW1 style. After all, she was 53 and not the merry gadabout of 28 she presents herself as being in The Sword of Deborah. As her biography shows, love, work and life in between wars had challenged her.

But it’s still such a good and early description of the tanker that in November 1940 carried 12,000 tonnes of aviation fuel from Galveston in the Jervis Bay convoy. The tanker was attacked by German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer, and cuaght fire, forcing the crew to take to the lifeboats and face terrible ordeals.

I checked to see if Jesse had been allowed to write the screenplay. Yes, she had. And she’s listed third in the list of its writers, after Robert Hamer and Charles Frend. That position may refer to the actual size of her contribution to the writing. My hunch is that mainly it reflects the credit (sparse) that women were formally given.

One of the modern reviews praises the movie ‘because it tells of ordinary people getting on with the job that, due to a world war, has to be done. These are modest heroes. Problems that come their way are solved unfussily. No one expects medals, they just get on with it…. You feel these are real people, not just actors.’ (Henry Girling on http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0039797)

I like to think that’s Jesse’s doing, because that’s the clear strength of her book – it’s about ordinary people. It makes their experience real to us.

P&O's first woman captain

Finally, more women are becoming captains of cruise ships. After 173 years P&O cruises has appointed its first woman 'Master.' Having served 21 years with the company Captain Breton now commands the 1,200-passenger Artemis.

This is a download from P&O's website, 20.4.2010:

'Captain Sarah Breton said: “Growing up near the water I always loved boats and the ocean, so it really does fulfil a lifelong ambition of mine to be a Captain with P&O Cruises. It is made even more special to be Captain of the first cruise ship I ever served on, after joining P&O Cruises as third officer back in 1989.”

Sarah, now 45, has served on board Royal Princess (now Artemis), Sky Princess, Canberra, Pacific Princess (the original Love Boat), Grand Princess and Star Princess as third officer, second officer, navigator, first officer and safety officer. She was first promoted to staff captain in 2001 on the original Pacific Princess and then went on to serve onboard Coral Princess, Tahitian Princess, the new Pacific Princess, Artemis and most recently Ocean Village.

Captain Breton lives on the Essex Coast and when on leave spends her time in the garden, sailing - whenever the weather permits, and watching Six Nations rugby and Formula One motor racing.'