A Career at Sea
I remember my first day as a cadet at Warsash Maritime Academy, I was gathered with the other cadets ready for our ‘morning muster’ in my freshly ironed Merchant Navy uniform. I was issued with a male shirt as they did not have female fit shirts, and polished shoes (again men’s shoes as the company did not issue a female version!) Once we were all lined up ready for inspection, I was surprised that out of 70 of us, I could only count 7 women! This quickly became 6 as one left after the first week…the uniform issue was starting to make some sense!
A cadetship works a bit like an apprenticeship, you complete a college phase and then you go to sea for a ‘working’ phase where you get to apply the theory learnt in the classroom. This is repeated for three years at which point, if successful you gain a BSc Maritime Operations.
Not being the most naturally gifted mathematician, I was surprised that over the next few years I was able to calculate the intercept of a selection of stars to determine the ships position in the ocean, calculate errors in a gyro compass, calculate amplitudes of celestial objects or the probable distance and forecast path of a nearby cyclone.
I ended up completing 6 years in the Merchant Navy, working on both cruise liners travelling Worldwide and ferries operating more locally as a third officer, second officer and later as a chief mate. Once qualified, I would work four months on ship, two months off. During my time onboard ship, I would be on call pretty much 24/7 as part of a medical or fire team and would also join the rotation as an officer of the watch working four hours on, eight hours off.
My other responsibilities included maintenance of the lifeboats when I wasn’t on watch and managing a deck team to man the aft station when bringing the ship alongside or departing port. Only once did I ever sail with another women at sea and some Captains still maintained the old superstition of women being bad luck at sea, of which they were proud to announce whenever they met me! This used to make me even more determined to succeed.
I have sailed to the furthest North you can possibly sail (around 82 degrees North), stood on polar bear watch in Svalbard, watched a beluga whale swim under the bulbous bow of the ship, navigated down the Amazon to Manaus and down the ever-shifting Mekong River in Vietnam.
I was able to successfully calculate our distance from a cyclone off Madagascar, sailed around the entire world, sailed through the waters off Somalia dodging pirates, rode a hot air balloon over the North Cape mountains, been husky dog sledding in Norway to walking amongst the famous Easter Island heads and swimming with wild manta rays and black tip reef sharks in Bora Bora, to so many more memories which I would never have had had I not worked at sea.
Heidi Clevett
HM Coastguard Vessel Traffic Manager




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