Male allies of ‘mistress mariners’: 1928

‘Should – could – a woman be given a master’s ticket? In effect, could a member of the ‘fair sex’ ever be a ship’s captain? That was the formal topic discussed at Southampton Master Mariners Club in late May 1928. By fluke I’ve just discovered this debate, while looking through online newspaper archives.

‘Thirty-one members ... laughingly voted against, and two have solemnly voted for, the suggestion that women are fit to command ships at sea,’ recorded the UK’s Truth.

The picture shows some of those Southampton Master Mariners' Club members a little later, enjoying  their first Sea Pie Supper, 1929. The founder, Captain SN Braithwaite, is fifth from left on the back row. 

Why does one local discussion matter? Because it was so well-publicised. And it reveals contemporary thinking about the gendered sea, in one of the most significant ports anywhere.

'Women’s Place on Board Ship' was the first debate the club had, after it was founded in February 1928.

And the SMMC's members’ words had a global impact in the English-speaking world. Newspapers in the US and Australia announced the decisions taken by these Hampshire captains of some of the greatest ocean liners.

Although the articles didn’t make the front-page, many  ran along the lines of the Lowell Sun’s: ‘Old salts object to women mariners.’

Equality in context

At that point in the UK women’s equality was anyway a hot topic. The Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act was due to come into effect in only four weeks’ time, on 2 July. This law meant that, at last, all women had the vote.  

And a yachtswoman, Lady Rasch, (c1880-1944) (pictured) had just been awarded her yachtmaster’s ticket. Katherine’s feat was greatly acclaimed in the society pages of newspapers, including in the US, that month. 

Actually the British Board of Trade had, since 1907, been allowing women to be awarded yachtmasters’ certificates, although it may only have been an honorary award before Lady Rasch’s time. 

Lady Ernestine Brudenell-Bruce (1871-1953) had begun the fight for that right in 1898, when she was not allowed to take her ticket at the end of her course at a Liverpool Nautical College. She leaked the BOT correspondence to newspapers as far away as New South Wales. 

Mr Ingram R Walker of the BOT told Ernestine ‘I am directed by the Board of Trade to state that they have always considered and held that a “master’s certificate” clearly implies that it is confined to men.’  

She carried on sailing anyway. So did some other unticketed yachting stars such as Mrs Grace Schenley (pictured, courtesy of Classic Boat Museum, Isle of Wight).

Furthermore, women officers were already on liners. Since 1919 ships had conductresses who acted as social workers for solo female emigrants. And nursing sisters had been accorded officer status on ships for two decades.
 Victoria Drummond (pictured, courtesy of Catherine Drummond-Herdman)) had become the world’s first female marine engineering officer in 1922.

What a question

So why weren’t women fit to command ships – or even work on them as deck officers – according to the conservative, and possibly tongue-in-cheek, chaps of 1928?
There’s much confused reporting, which ignores – ahem – the slight difference of scale in the business of commanding a yacht as opposed to that complex cluster of operations, the ocean-going ships.

But the two main reasons appear to be:
1. ‘The life of the sea breeds characteristics, particularly in the way of vocabulary, not best suited to female comradeship’ went one argument in the Truth. Presumably this was a metonymic way of saying that women belonged to a separate and more refined culture. Therefore mutual intelligibility was impossible.

 2. Sex-segregated space on board would be required, as the women worked their way up the ranks. ‘Whether they enter as apprentices or ordinary seamen, women would have to be berthed apart from the rest of the crew ... I cannot imagine shipowners relishing such an additional demand upon space’ was another obstacle raised in the Truth. The same argument was still being used to exclude women from ‘men’s jobs’ in the 1970s.

Bossy boots

The Truth’s writer thought the discussion in the press which led to the Master Mariners’ vote ‘started from the wrong end.’ He focused on unladylike bossiness:

‘That women have the mental ability to take an extra-master’s "ticket" nobody will doubt. That a large type has fitness to command men anybody with knowledge of boarding house landladies will readily agree.’  (Such  businesswomen were stereotyped as the epitome solo female tyrants). The H  Ryder Haggard characterisation of a woman as ‘She who must be obeyed’ had been jocularly circulating for 38 years by then.

However, the Truth also added somewhat sensibly ‘‘But command of a ship is a goal at the end of a long and very hard  road ...  and the real question is whether women have the physical and temperamental endurance to travel that road.’

Leaking Pipeline Syndrome is still a problem today. The obstacles to women ‘flowing on’ in a lifetime career are now recognised as including that:

• the on-board social climate can be hostile to women, even on passenger ships
• shipowners’ non-family-friendly working arrangements  force women to choose between motherhood and career.

How to solve the problem?

So what was to be done, in 1928? In a world where all training ship cadets were male the Truth’s reporter suggested ‘A training ship for women might meet the case up to a point ...  but at the end of their probation the same difficulty of "mixing" would occur.’

‘The real solution would seem to lie in an all-woman "manned" ship,’ (something partly attempted in 1960s China).

The Truth then mentioned precedents: that women disguised as men had got on quite successfully in the maritime past: ‘celebrated examples of successful disguise [included] ... Hannah Snell, Mary Read, Ann Bonny, and Mary Ann Talbot.’

He did not deduce that these disguised women’s success (in low-ranked shipboard roles) proved that the problem was not women’s actual lack of intrinsic competence.

Rather their feats were proof that trouble only occurred because men imagined that any woman who was visibly female must somehow be too cowardly to climb up masts or to survive bad voyages without going into hysterics over the wet chintz cushions or possible damage to her nail varnish.

Male allies

It’s no surprise that the elite Southampton gatekeepers protected their professional enclave.  But it’s telling that two men voted for in support of women - if only for the pleasure of playing devil’s advocate. Today women recognise that male mentors are important. In 2017 the Women’s Engineering Society instituted the Men as Allies Award.

But who were those two enlightened masters mariners nearly a century ago, who deserve retrospective awards?

 1.       The first can barely be traced. Captain SN Braithwaite, MBE, was at that time the Marine Superintendent for the Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and seemingly in his 50s. In WW1 he had been honoured for his part in the Dardanelles campaign, as captain of the troopship Cardiganshire, which took soldiers out to Gallipoli. 

He had organised the founding meeting of the SMMC, in the RMSPC staff dining room, just a few months earlier. He later went on to become Staff Captain, then Captain, of the Club. In 1933 he became president of Southampton Shipping Golf Society. So maybe his opinion carried some weight.  In other words he was popular and a networker. Often male supporters of maritime women were fathers of lively daughters, but his family life is not known.

Captain Braithwaite declared to the press ‘We have women mayors and councillors, women lawyers, women doctors, why not women master mariners? Personally I should not mind serving under a woman master.’

 2.    Maritime women’s second ally was John Archibald Rupert-Jones, the hydrographer to the Southampton Harbour Board. Then 54, he had been decorated for his RNR service in WW1. And he was esteemed for his survey of St John’s harbour (1912) and Chronological Order of the Introduction of Steam-Propelled Vessels into the Royal Navy’ (1927).

He was married to a farmer’s daughter, and had grown up in an applied intellectual and taxonomic situation: John’s father was the distinguished professor of geology and palaeontologist Thomas Rupert Jones (1819-1911). Thomas had been teaching at Sandhurst when John was born. This background may suggest John was a person who would not have readily tolerated untrained, undisciplined people ‘interfering’. In other words, he wouldn’t be someone to gallantly support just any women fancying herself in gold braid. But he would be able to make space respectfully for those who were competent. 

Beatie Fry: mutiny ‘absurd’

John Rupert-Jones named Mrs Beatie Fry as a ‘living example of a woman who would be a capable master mariner.’  The Press Association journalist on the story gathered some quotes from Beatie Fry (formerly Holme Sumner, 1842-1966). Then aged 66 she was one of the best known female authority figures in Merchant Navy circles as, effectively, the head of the training ship Mercury for three decades. 

‘She who must be obeyed’:  Beatie with her friend Admiral Sir James Somerville to her left. These images are from Ronald Morris’ biography of her, The Indomitable Beatie (2004).

From girlhood she had been notorious for her ‘manly’ disregard for feminine conventions: she rode astride, wore masculine clothing and had been involved in a sex scandal.

Beatie Fry joined this SMMC debate by asserting she would ‘have liked to see women given the chance of becoming master mariners. The necessary qualifications which she named, nerve [“not nerves”], comprehension, self-control, and stamina were, she considered, present in some women as in some men.'

‘She herself frequently led the boys of Mercury aloft, a feat which she considered presented no difficulty to the average woman. Like [Prime Minister Stanley] Baldwin, she was convinced you cannot cheat the sea: competence for the job, and competence alone, can save a skipper’s face and make a skipper’s reputation.’ 

‘Such competence would, she considered, be recognised and reverenced by a crew as readily in a woman as in a man skipper. Mrs Fry’s robust and generous faith in her own sex is both convincing and refreshing’ opined The Woman’s Leader.

‘Asked “What about mutiny?” Mrs Fry said “There would be no fear of mutiny if a woman were in command. As for sea-sickness, a woman is no more liable to sea sickness than is a man," reported the Nottingham Evening Post.

Two weeks later Captain Thomas Luther Evans, who had 29 years’ experience, told the Western Mail her claim was ‘absurd and impracticable.’ He ‘would strongly advise her to drop a subject for which she is totally incapacitated.’

Women today

‘Today thirteen of the club's 250 members are women,’ says SMM Club membership secretary Barry Peck. 'Of these, five as Master Mariners  and one is a Younger Brother of Trinity House. times have moved on since 1928. '

Captain Rachel Dunn NMN, is an example of this. ( Pictured above on the Admiralty pilot boat after bringing in HMS Dauntless, Portsmouth 2015.

She joined in 2000 when five month’s pregnant with her twin girls.
‘It’s a great place to have knowledgeable collective discussions about how to create a comradely happy ship.’
She found the members were still so unused to female captains that they mentored her and saw her as a novelty. But they respected her endeavour.

When she became the first female captain of the Club in 2019 she did not want her gender to be commented upon in the media. ‘I was a ship’s master and my qualifications were just the same as those of any other captain of the club,’ this STEM ambassador told me this week.

 What does it mean?

This SMMC debate, and its global publication, is not only a really useful way of understanding gendered social ideas about women in authority in the maritime past.

 It’s also a way of figuring out which women were being seen as significant in the maritime world of that period: the notorious Beatie Fry, Victoria Drummond, and Lady Ernestine Hunt (nee Brudenell-Bruce). Their aristocratic backgrounds helped them rise.

By contrast their forbears, such as Hannah Snell, succeeded despite being working-class, because their gender was invisible to their shipmates and because they did not seek authoritative positions.

 --

(The author is grateful to Barry Peck and Terry Clark of the SMMC, and to  Rachel Dunn, for their co-operation over this article).

Women increasingly becoming cruise captains: CondeNast Traveler

This is an interesting summary not only of the new women ship's captains but the fresh networks that are helping right the gendered imbalance in the maritime work force: Women Offshore (https://womenoffshore.org/author/allison-cedeno/) and the Scarlet Squad. (The first ones began in the 1990s, in the US and New Zealand).

Cameroonian Nicholine Tifuh Azirh became, the first West African woman to work on the bridge of a cruise ship, is also featured.

This article  by  Cynthia Drescher,  ‘With More and More Women Taking the Helm, the Cruise Industry is Setting an Example,' is from CondeNast Traveller, 21. 2.2019
https://www.cntraveler.com/story/why-there-are-more-female-cruise-ship-captains-than-ever. I've just added some sub-headings and extra pictures.

"I’m so excited to share the news of our partnership with RMU and to welcome Nicholine [Tifuh Azirh] onboard,” says Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, of Celebrity Cruises. “Nicholine isn’t just a new-hire, she symbolizes hope for women around the world who dream of working in a male-dominated industry.” Picture by Diego Texera/Courtesy Celebrity Cruises

'Kate McCue was walking along a beach on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten last June when an attendant asked if she was heading back to one of the cruise ships docked there for the day. 
Wearing a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses and a sundress over a swimsuit, McCue certainly looked the part of the relaxed vacationer. 

She replied, however, that she worked onboard, then asked the attendant to guess her role on the ship. 
“I think you’re the captain’s wife, but if you’re not, then I think you’re the cruise director’s wife,” he said. 
McCue's reply—"What do you think if I tell you I’m the captain?”.
[T]he man’s shocked but enthusiastic reaction, was posted on her Instagram account, and the short exchange has racked up more than 16,000 views and a deluge of supportive comments from viewers. 

Some even vow to only cruise on whatever ship she’s captaining (currently the Celebrity Equinox).
McCue [pictured below] may be the first American woman to captain a cruise ship, an honor she earned in 2015, but her story is emblematic of a paradigm shift in the cruise industry, where, for the first time, more women are taking the helm. 

Women now constitute between 18 and 20 percent of the cruise industry workforce, and five to 22 percent of cruise ship officers are women, depending on the line. 

Compare this to the global airline pilot industry’s five percent female statistic, and it’s clear that cruising is making waves (pun intended).

PROGRESS HAS BEEN HARD

Not that progress has been easy, of course. Having a woman on a ship’s bridge was once considered a major no-no.
[C]enturies of folklore painted women as sirens, mermaids, or demons who distracted crew and angered the sea gods into stirring up stormy weather.
During the 19th century, the only female presence found on many ships would have been the carved wooden figurehead of an open-eyed, bare-breasted woman affixed to its bow—a totem the sailors believed would bring navigational luck while shaming the seas into calm weather. 

SUPERSTITION DISPLACED

Ship officers, meanwhile, traditionally came from countries like Greece, Italy, England, and Norway—cradles of seagoing tradition and home to a plethora of professional maritime academies, many of which did not admit women until the last quarter-century.
But nautical superstitions die hard. 

The growing availability to all of a professional maritime education, combined with seemingly common sense developments like sexual harassment prevention training and making marine workwear available for women at sea, opened the way to shipboard leadership.
[A]nd, in the last decade, cruise lines have been enthusiastically promoting women to the top ranks.

“THERE ARE SHIFTS TO NOT ONLY HIRE MORE WOMEN, BUT ALSO RETAIN A FEMALE WORKFORCE, EFFECTIVELY OPENING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN TO PURSUE LEADERSHIP ROLES," SAYS ALLY CEDENO, FOUNDER OF WOMEN OFFSHORE.

PIONEERS

The first woman appointed captain of a cruise ship was Karin Stahre-Janson of Sweden, who took command of Royal Caribbean’s Monarch of the Seas in 2007. 

Other lines that have added their first female captains include: 

• Cunard (Inger Klein Thorhauge)
•  P&;O Cruises (Sarah Breton)
•  Windstar(Belinda Bennett, the industry’s first black female captain), 
• Sea Cloud Cruises (Kathryn Whittaker)
•  AIDA (Nicole Langosch)
• Silversea (Margrith Ettlin). 

• 

Just this week, luxury line Regent Seven Seas Cruises announced that its newest ship, the Seven Seas Splendor, set to debut in 2020, will be the first brand new cruise ship to have a woman, Serena Melani [pictured, right] as its first master. 

(A ship’s master is the captain captain and the ultimate authority onboard, while a staff captain is the second-in-command and next to take a ship of their own.) 

CELEBRITY 'FIRSTS'

Lisa Lutoff-Perlo, president and CEO of Celebrity Cruises—and Kate McCue's boss—is a "first" herself. 
In 2014 she became the first woman to run a publicly traded cruise line, a position she’s held while developing initiatives to recruit more women to shipboard leadership roles. 
Celebrity now leads the industry, with women accounting for 22 percent of its bridge teams. 

2/13 CELEBRITY 'MASTERS'

The Celebrity fleet of 13 ships counts two female masters—McCue on the Celebrity Equinox, and Nathaly Albán, the first Ecuadorian cruise ship captain, on the Celebrity Xploration—and two female staff captains, Wendy Williams and Maria Gotor, as well as many more at other officer levels.
Yet another industry first came when Lutoff-Perlo had a chance meeting with a female cadet from Ghana’s Regional Maritime University.
Learning that women enrolled at the institution have no career path following graduation other than turning around to assist or teach at the university, Lutoff-Perlo helped forge a partnership with the school to create a pipeline for female maritime professionals from Africa.
[As a result] in 2017 RMU Cadet and Cameroonian Nicholine Tifuh Azirhbecame the first West African woman to work on the bridge of a cruise ship. 
All this trailblazing was also key in Celebrity’s convincing Malala Yousafzai, the female education activist and Nobel laureate, to christen and be godmother of the line’s newest ship, Celebrity Edge, in December 2018.

SUPPORTIVE NETWORKS HELP

"That said, no one goes straight from the maritime academy classroom to the dress whites and formal nights of a cruise ship career. Ally Cedeno, [pictured right] a chief mate of unlimited tonnage vessels and an offshore dynamic positioning operator, founded the Women Offshore organization to foster and support female interest in maritime professions. 

She tells Traveler that the organization's mission is to offer “virtual mentorships,” describing them as “a free resource for any woman, regardless of what body of water she works in.” 

Cedeno believes now is (finally) the time for women to rule the waves. “There are shifts to not only hire more women, but also retain a female workforce, effectively opening opportunities for women to pursue leadership roles," she says. 
"Addressing the gender gap has gone beyond recruitment practices to focus on maternity leave, availability of technical uniforms, mentoring, and harassment prevention guidelines.”Seeking out mentorships is also the advice of Uniworld River Cruises CEO Ellen Bettridge, whose line recently shook up the staid river cruising industry with initiatives to welcome LGBTQ+ couples and families as well as millennials. 

“Cruising is one of hospitality’s great innovators,” she says. “I do believe that women have a special understanding of the power that lies in making connections, and so I encourage young women to find an experienced person who can help them navigate their careers.
 And when you make it, be that person for someone else.”


GENDER DIVERSITY IS AS CRITICAL TO A SHIP AS IT IS TO ANY ENTERPRISE, ENCOURAGING TEAMWORK AND CREATIVITY WHILE BRINGING A RANGE OF PERSPECTIVES FOR BETTER, MORE INFORMED, AND EVEN FASTER DECISION MAKING

VIRGIN'S SCARLET SQUAD

The numbers of women on cruise ship bridges is only expected to grow, especially with newbie cruise line Virgin Voyages actively recruiting women to the bridge of their first ship, Scarlet Lady, due to begin sailing in 2020. 
Virgin has formed a “Scarlet Squad” with the explicit intent of “growing leadership roles for women in marine, technical, and hotel management positions onboard.” 

Dee Cooper, senior vice president of design for Virgin Voyages, tells Traveler that their shoreside team is 60 percent female, and they have set a goal for their shipboard crew to be at least 50 percent female. 
"We need to rebalance the field," she said at a recent press conference in New York City, when Virgin Voyages announced its sailings were open for booking.
 "And we're focusing our attention on recruitment and mentoring to do it."

2019: DIVERSITY

A cruise ship may be a vacation factory for its guests, but it's also a workplace for the hundreds or thousands of crew onboard. 
Gender diversity is as critical to a ship as it is to any enterprise, encouraging teamwork and creativity while bringing a range of perspectives for better, more informed, and even faster decision making. 
It’s also just good business sense. 

Women make the lion’s share of decisions and bookings in the $7.6 billion dollar travel and tourism industry, so having women at all levels means better representing and relating to customers. 
And with 2019 set to be the biggest year ever for new cruise ships—24 deliveries will bring another 42,488 beds to the seas—there's never been more opportunity in the industry, not to mention improved chances that the woman on the beach lounger next to you is your captain.

 

Russian would-be captain Svetlana challenge sexist labour laws in court this month

In the 1930s and WW2, Soviet Russia was globally famous for its pioneering women captains such as Anna Shchetinina and Valentina Orlikova. They were exemplars. Their success and the respect they received inspired women everywhere. (See pics below and http://genderedseas.blogspot.co.uk/2014/07/soviet-women-commanding-ships.html)


This month, 80 years on, Svetlana Medvedeva is struggling for the right to be captain. Her landmark legal campaign could mean women mariners get back the rights they won at a time when all hands were needed -- even women's.
Svetlana's case raises the issue of whether protective legislation is outmoded sexism. It highlights the persistent pattern that women are allowed opportunities to do 'men's work' when there is an under-supply of labour. They are permitted to fill gaps. And there are few gaps in the Russian maritime industry just now.

This is what Amnesty international, which backs Svetlana, said:
"31 August 2017. A trial that opens today and sees a 31-year-old female navigation officer sue a Russian shipping company who refused to employ her as a ship’s captain, represents a landmark challenge to Russia’s sexist and outdated labour regulations.
Svetlana Medvedeva graduated in 2005 as a navigation officer in Samara region. In 2012 she applied for a job as a ship’s captain by Samara River Passenger Enterprise, but the company’s initial consent to hire her was later retracted because of labour laws that restrict women from more than 400 professions.

ARDUOUS, DANGEROUS, HARMFUL
The current list of professional occupations that are banned for women in Russia lists 456 occupations and 38 industries that are considered too “arduous,” “dangerous” or “harmful” to women’s health, in particular to their reproductive health.
The “prohibited” list was originally adopted in the USSR in 1974. It was confirmed in 2000 by Russian Government Regulation No. 162 which allowed for exemptions only if safe working conditions were established by the employer.
Svetlana Medvedeva challenged the rejection of her job application in court, seeking a judicial order to compel the company to establish safe working conditions and allow her to work in accordance with Regulation No. 162. However her claim was rejected.

UN COMPLAINT SUCCEEDS 2013-16

In May 2013, she registered a complaint before the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) alleging that her rights had been violated.
The complaint claimed that she had been denied employment by the company because of her sex, on the basis of a blanket prohibition.
On 25 February 2016, the CEDAW Committee found in favour of Svetlana Medvedeva and urged the Russian authorities to grant her appropriate compensation and to facilitate access to jobs for which she is qualified.

SUPREME COURT VICTORY 2017
In July 2017 Russia’s Supreme Court ruled that her case should be re-opened. The trial begins today in Samara’s District Court. (see pic)

Amnesty International calls on Russia to comply with the CEDAW recommendation to amend Regulation No. 162 and to remove all arbitrary restrictions on women’s employment."
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/08/russia-aspiring-female-ships-captain-to-challenge-sexist-labour-laws-in-court/
--

Seafarers Union of Russia said in 2012:

"In 2005 Svetlana graduated from Samara River Transport College. She specialized in Inland waterway and coastal navigation course. According to her certificate, Svetlana could work as a steerer-motorist. But when the girl tried to apply for a job on board m/s “Om-338” it turned out that Svetlana couldn’t be permitted to get it under the above Regulation.

'ABSURD'
Thus the situation became absurd as girls are allowed to get trained for specific professions but not to actually work in them.
Svetlana decided to fight and was alone at the beginning. She wrote to the President’s press-office that her constitution rights were violated and the letter was resend to the Federal Labour and Employment Service (which monitors the situation in the employment and compliance to labour laws, and etc.).
There it was explained to Svetlana that she could get the job in question provided that working conditions would comply with safety standards. After that Svetlana got in touch with the representatives of “Memorial” anti-discrimination centre and was recommended to appeal to court and complain against the SRPE for unsafe working conditions. Yet the court decided in favor of the enterprise, and this made Svetlana to write to SUR.
“My dream is to start working as a steerer- motorist, and then to join the Marine Engineering Department of Volzhsk State Academy”,- explains Svetlana.


'LOTS OF DISCRIMINATION IN FLEET'
Tatiana Sukhanova (pictured above), a deep sea captain from the Far East, says that “nowadays there are a lot of cases of gender discrimination in the fleet. More often then not, girls face difficulties when seeking a job, and even during their cadet practice.
This case shows gender discrimination because Svetlana is a bright girl who can successfully cope with her tasks, and even better than some boys do.” http://www.sur.ru/node/652
More on Tatiana's own struggle can be found at https://rusreality.com/2017/06/14/for-women-in-russia-are-closed-456-professions-a-truck-driver-an-assistant-captain-and-the-captain-about-how-they-overcame-this-ban/

India's first woman captain, Radhika Menon, to get Bravery Award.

'

On 21 November 2016 Radhika Menon will become the first woman to receive the 2016 International Maritime Organisation Award for Exceptional Bravery at Sea, it was announced on July 10.Here are some extracts from the internet coverage:

"I am humbled, honoured and grateful. It is a maritime obligation to save souls in distress at sea and, as a seafarer and master in command of my ship, I just did my duty," she said in an email quoted by The Times Of India.

HER BACKGROUND
'Born and raised in Kerala’s Kodungallur, Captain Radhika Menon did a one-and-a-half year radio course at the All India Marine College in Kochi before she became a radio officer in the Shipping Corporation of India (SCI), which was also a stellar first, as far as the SCI’s track record with women officers goes.
'By 2012, she ascended up the rungs, with persistent studying and clearing of the required exams for the posts of second mate and chief mate, served out her hours at sea required to appear for the master’s certificate, which she cleared in 2010.
'By 2012, she historically became the first woman captain of the country to take charge of a Merchant Navy ship – the MT Suvarna Swarajya.

THE HEROIC RESCUE
'"Captain Menon was nominated by the Government of India for the rescue of all seven fishermen from the fishing boat Durgamma, which was adrift following engine failure and loss of anchor in severe weather," a government of India statement said. Seas were tumultuous in the Bay of Bengal. Food and water had been washed away and the men were surviving on ice from the ship's cold storage.
'"Through wave heights of more than 25 feet, winds of more than 60 knots and heavy rain, on 22 June, the second officer on the Sampurna Swarajya spotted the boat 2.5 kilometres away, off the coast of Gopalpur, Odisha. Captain Menon immediately ordered a rescue operation, utilising the pilot ladder and with life jackets and buoys on standby," it added.
'It took three arduous attempts in the lashing wind and rain and heavy swells before all seven weak and starving fishermen, aged from 15 to 50 years old, were brought to safety on board the ship.'

THE AWARD
The IMO is the UN agency with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships. It has long had an excellent record in combating gender discrimination. When the IMO Council met last month in London it endorsed the judges' decision that Captain Menon displayed 'great determination and courage in leading the difficult rescue operation.'

WOMEN'S HEROISM AT SEA IN THE PAST
Knowing something about the (poor) history of UK awards made to maritime women, it seems to me that it is wonderful that Radhika's achievement is being properly recognised. So readily too.
In the past, many women have been brave at sea. For example, they've selflessly given their life jackets to save others' lives, and lost their own life in the process.
Yet few deserving women have been given awards for meritous feats. Sometimes their feats were covered up, as in Wren Audrey Coningham Roche's case in WW2. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/4528417/Audrey-Roche.html.

It's as if men feared that their own feats bravery would be somehow diminished if it was seen that women could also be brave.

Conversely, also, women were patronisingly feted for their actions, as if it was unusual that women could display any courage at all.

Because women have only recently been allowed to be captains, and only rarely allowed near danger (in the armed forces) there have not yet been many in a position to lead such rescue operations, as Radhika did.

Captain Menon's award really is an important first. I'm sure it will be the first of many to women captains.

Pionering woman captain Denise Bradlaugh-Bonner

Books that attempt to keep a record always have key figures who got away. Captain Denise Bradlaugh-Bonner, (1952-2016) was one of the women who should have featured strongly in my new book, From Cabin Boys to Captains: 250 years of women at sea https://www.facebook.com/From-Cabin-Boys-to-Captains-250-years-of-women-at-sea-1674785129441025

Throughout 2013, 14 and 15 I tried and tried to have the promised interview with Denise, one of the very first women captains of the early 1980s. But we never managed it. Not least of the problems was that she was living abroad, in France, and her emails kept being hacked into and her URL changed.

"My time at Sea? I don't particularly see my self as a significant pioneer! However, if I can be of help - no problem" she told me. We didn't get much further.

But I am still hoping her ex-shipmates and family will get in touch so I can write more. She deserves to be fully on the record.

You can read a robust but vague discussion in 2008 of this popular and competent captain - and lively shipmate - on the Ship's Nostalgia website http://www.shipsnostalgia.com/archive/index.php?t-20410.html. She briefly, and wittily, joined in from Malaga.

Entries from ex-shipmates indicate that in her career c 1983-2000 she worked on very small dry cargo vessels owned by the then-small Cowes firm Carisbrooke, as well as for Arklow and Union Transport. Her ships included Angelique V, Helen C. Greta C, Betty C and Serenall (which I can't track down, so may be a mis-spelling).



(Denise's Angelique V, Image courtesy of Coasters and Other Ships Revived, http://7seasvessels.com/angelique-v-1981-imo-8026282-2/)


The Betty C at Tilbury in 1990. Picture by John Jones, image courtesy of http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=146340.

One of her husbands was an ship's engineer, Scully. They lived in Port Leache in Ireland. In the early 1990s she split up rather acrimoniously from another husband, John Webb; they had lived near Colchester.

I've just heard that she died suddenly in March. An interesting version of her story appears at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/24/denise-bradlaugh-bonner-obituary..

Until then I had imagined her as 30 years older, staid, salty and certainly not the kind of wild child I myself might have hung out with. So this obituary is yet another valuable proof that making any assumptions about women seafarers is a no-no.

The obituary also appears below, but I have added some notes.

Other Lives: Denise Bradlaugh-Bonner obituary by Andrew Keogh
Thursday 24 March 2016

My friend Denise Bradlaugh-Bonner, who has died of a heart attack aged 63, was born in London of Irish parents and retained a strong Irish identity throughout her life, which was utterly changed as a 16-year-old schoolgirl when she went on a school trip to Paris just in time for the événements of May 68.
Returning to England, she threw herself into far left politics. She joined the International Marxist Group but found herself in the doghouse when, while attending one of its summer schools, she decided that repairing to a local pub would be a more interesting use of her time and accordingly “borrowed” the IMG’s Land Rover, which was returned somewhat damaged. The IMG constituted a people’s court to deal with these depredations, only to find themselves described as a “boring bunch” by the miscreant. She was later expelled from the IMG (for ultra leftism) and was also expelled from the International Socialists (forerunner of the Socialist Workers party) for the same reason, which may constitute a unique double.
Denise was also heavily involved in the squatting campaigns of the era; she found herself on the receiving end of a medieval trespass law and in some apparent risk of custody. Michael Mansfield, then a junior barrister, came to her rescue and the penalty was mild. It was probably necessary for her wellbeing that her activism eased off and it duly did. She gravitated more and more to the London School of Economics, though for social rather than educational purposes. She never did anything quite so mainstream as a degree.

Taking to the sea
The change in Denise’s life began in the mid-70s, when she gave effect to a long-term hankering and bought and lived on a working Thames riverboat. The boat was moored at Kingston but would regularly head off up the Thames after dinner (she was an excellent cook) in the general direction of a riverside pub with mooring facilities.
She went on to qualify as a Thames river pilot, essentially out of interest, but the sea was in her blood.
A number of members of her family, including her father, Denis Halloran, had worked in the merchant navy [Note from Jo. He may have been Chief Officer of the British Judge, Dennis Patrick Thomas Halloran, who won an MBE in 1944].

... [Denise joined the MN] in the early 1980s, initially at the bottom as a ship’s mate.
Through hard work she went on to become the first female master (ship’s captain) in the British merchant navy.[Others had actually succeeded before that]
She was inevitably met with a lot of prejudice, possibly compounded by her typical refusal to wear the master’s uniform (she wore a white boiler suit instead). [On small cargo ships in the MN it is quite normal to wear boilies. There are no passengers to impress].
But [she] won people over by being very good at her job and supportive to her crews.
Her career came to an end when she caught a serious tropical virus, seemingly in the South China sea.
She retired in the 2000s and alternated between living in Spain and in Norway until she settled at Couiza in the foothills of the French Pyrenees.
Denise married and divorced four times. She is survived by her mother, Margaret, and brother, John.

Belinda Bennett, first black woman cruisehip captain

Today a Southampton woman, Belinda Bennett, became the first black woman captain in the cruise industry. Captain of the Windstar, she joins the handful of pathbreakers who have become captains of cruise ships since 2007.
‘“Having been with Windstar for the past 11 years, I couldn’t be more honored to serve as Captain with such a respected and hard-working team,” said Bennett. “Earning this title has been a long and exciting professional journey.”’

Windstar wrote:
“We are thrilled to have appointed Belinda as Windstar’s first-ever female Captain and we understand may be the cruise industry’s first-ever black Captain,” said Hans Birkholz, Windstar Cruises’ chief executive officer.
“She has earned her spot at the helm and I’m excited to see her in action, guiding the crew and our guests on Wind Star through some of the world’s most incredible destinations for years to come.”
‘Hailing originally from St. Helena – a part of the British Overseas Territory, encompassing Ascension and Tristan da Cunha islands – Bennett naturally became immersed with life at sea, having started as a Deck Cadet at age 17 on her home island ship the RMS St. Helena.
‘Just four years later, she climbed the ranks as Third Officer and ultimately stayed on board for an additional five years, until departing in 2003 as Second Officer.
'Following a brief stretch as Chief Officer for the SS Delphine, a private charter yacht, and Isle of Man Steam Packet ferries, Bennett joined Windstar Cruises as Second Officer at the Port of Monaco in September 2005.
‘Bennett worked on a variety of Windstar Cruises ships over her 11-year career with the small ship luxury line, transitioning to chief officer and now captain.

KEY QUESTIONS
1. What did you want to be when you were little?
I wanted to be a marine biologist in my younger years. I guess I always had a passion for the sea!

2.What qualities must someone possess to become a good cruise ship captain?
You have to be a good communicator – able to both talk and listen. You also need to be visible to both guests and the crew.

3.What are your favorite ports-of-call and why?
I so love the Dalmatian coast. The Croatian coastline and ports are beautiful! And for anyone who has sailed with me, they know I have a particular affinity for Sorrento in Italy, where I have a personal traditional of buying Italian leather handbags. You’ll notice the word “handbags” is plural.
http://blog.windstarcruises.com/2016/03/diversity-sails-forward-introducing-captain-belinda-bennett-windstars-first-black-female-ships-master

BELINDA'S HISTORIC PREDECESSORS
An illustrated summary of the modern pioneering women captains can be found here:http://maritimeolympiad.com/women-at-sea.

But women captains on all sorts of ships do have an earlier history, from Betsy Miller in the 1860s. Tellingly, few were black or even mixed race until the last few years. (But that's as far as we know, from a western perspective. There will be other, African and Asian, stories.)
Want to know what it took to be a woman master in a man's world, in the past? Try my history book, From Cabin ‘Boys’ to Captains: 250 years of women at sea. www.thehistorypress.co.uk/publication/cabin-‘boys’-to-captains/9780752488783.

Serena Melani, first Italian woman cruiseship captain takes over

Regent Seven Seas has just appointed Italian Serena Melani, 42, as captain of the 48,075-ton Seven Seas Mariner. I think she is now the tenth woman in the world to attain such a position.

Although women have had Masters certificates for over 140 years, women were only allowed to become captains of cruise ships in early 2000s.

Today, as I post this blog, her ship is at Boca da Valeria, Brazil, on an Amazon cruise. Seven Seas Mariner (pictured) was one of the world's prize-winning first all-suite, all-balcony vessels in 2002. It carries 700 guests and 400 crew.

From Livorno (Leghorn), Captain Melani graduated in 1993 as yacht engineer. She is the first Italian woman to become Captain of a cruise ship.


And 98 years earlier....

Serena is by no means the first Italian woman to qualify. She was preceded in 1918 by Elise Belluomini of Viareggio, the port on the west (Tyrrhenian Sea) coast.

Elise travelled 45 km south to train at Livorno nautical college, despite all odds. Local people thought when she told them of her ambition that she must 'certainly be possessed by the devil'. But a veteran sea captain mentored her - as so many generous senior men have since helped women with their start in seafaring.

At college Elise made 'astonishingly rapid progress'. See https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2423642/the_washington_post/.

It was almost certainly the famous institute founded in 1863, which five years after Elise qualified became the Istituto Nautico Alfredo Cappellini (pictured, thanks to http://www.panoramio.com/user/855041/tags/brigantino%20cappellini).

Today the Institute still offers training for Merchant Navy personnel, but seemingly in Elise's time was for the Royal Navy too.

Elise qualified circa March 1918, when the First World War was still being waged. In fighting spirit she told a Paris correspondent:'I will show my crew that a woman can be as brave as any man'.

It's not known if Captain Belluomini ever commanded her own ship. However, she would have been unlikely to do so for at least another ten years.

Any captain usually takes that long. Women tend to have to wait longer again. This is not least because shipping companies are happy to publicise equal opportunities achievements but cautious about the officers to whom they entrust expensive real estate, especially if they fear passengers will worry about a woman being in charge.


Serena Melani
The article below is a straight lift, with thanks, from this site: http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/cruising/77732261/in-a-first-a-woman-takes-the-helm-of-a-regent-cruise-ship: 'In a first, a woman takes the helm of a Regent cruise ship' by GENE SLOAN,March 10 2016.

'Another glass ceiling in the cruise world has been shattered as luxury line Regent Seven Seas announced its first female captain.

Serena Melani, 42, of Italy, has been appointed the new master of the 48,075-ton Seven Seas Mariner, a position that puts her in charge of 450 crew. Melani becomes one of just a handful of women to command a major cruise vessel at any line.

"Of course, I am very proud," Melani told USA Today in an exclusive interview, noting that breaking into the still-very-male-dominated world of shipping wasn't easy.

"It was hard finding a job (on a ship) at the beginning of my career," she said in a phone call from Mariner, which was sailing along the coast of Brazil. "It took me five years."

Melani's first job at sea was with a cargo ship where she said she was the only woman on board. She also worked on oil and gas tankers for several years before moving to cruise ships. She joined Regent in 2010, quickly rising through the ranks from second officer to safety officer to staff captain.

In a statement accompanying today's announcement, Regent president and chief operating officer Jason Montague praised Melani's leadership on Regent ships and said the promotion to captain was well-earned.

"I know she will perform admirably in guiding Seven Seas Mariner as she sails from the Caribbean to Alaska," he said.

As is often the case with people who work on ships, Melani said it was a lust to see the world that first got her interested in a career at sea. She grew up in a little town along the coast of Italy, and she said she knew from an early age that she wanted to spend her life exploring.

"It is a very gypsy life; you are most of the time away from home," she said, noting that that's just fine with her.

Melani and Captain Teo Srdelić, from whom she took over the Seven Seas Mariner last month.


Melani's mobile life

Melani spends about six months a year at sea. But even in her off time, she gets antsy to hit the road, along with her husband.

"When I am 'home,' I am travelling," she said. "Not by boat, because I want a change, but we like to move by motor bike or car depending on the season. I really enjoy the mountains. At least two or three times a year I go to the Italian Dolomites for hiking and climbing."

Melani said books about travel, particularly tales of women travellers, are always by her nightstand. And she's always looking for the next adventure, which in some cases can be had just outside her floating office. Regent ships are known for globe-circling itineraries that often include stops at off-the-beaten-path locales.

"On my last trip here on the Mariner, we went down from Lisbon to South Africa, and we visited several West African ports," she noted. "It was a beautiful experience."

Melani joins a very small circle of women who have commanded a major cruise ship.

Her appointment comes just eight months after Celebrity Cruises appointed its first female captain, Kate McCue - the first American woman to command a major cruise ship.

Royal Caribbean is widely credited with hiring the first female of any nationality to command a major [cruise] ship, Karin Stahre-Janson of Sweden, in 2007, and the line added a second female captain from Portugal in 2008. Britain's P&O Cruises, Cunard and Silversea also have appointed female captains over the past five years.TNS'

--

An article about Kate McCue and this picture appear at http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BN-KC028_0831FI_G_20150831161618.jpg

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