nothing is sure in a sea fight above all.

The most impressive career of all the female sailors is that of William Brown, a black woman who spent at least twelve years on British warships, much of this time in the extremely demanding role of captain of the foretop…. Brown was a married woman and joined the navy around 1804 following a quarrel with her husband. For several years she served on the Queen Charlotte, a three-decker with 104 guns and one of the largest ships in the Royal Navy. The Queen Charlotte had a crew of 850 men and usually served as the flagship of the fleet. Brown must have had nerve, strength and unusual ability to have been made captain of the foretop on such a ship.

[Eleanor CrEssy’s] husband was commander of the famous clipper ship Flying Cloud, and on more than one occasion contributed to the record-breaking passages of the ship. However, it was her pinpointing of the location of a drowning seaman that made her famous. The Flying Cloud was heading for Madagascar in heavy weather, and Mrs. Cressy was working at the chart table when she glanced through the porthole and saw a man in the sea… They searched the area where they thought he should be but failed to find him, and the captain concluded he was lost. Mrs. Cressy was not prepared to give up so easily. She knew the position he had gone overboard, and she worked out the direction of wind and tide and the drift of the ship…. Captain Cressy decided to send two boats out, and sure enough, they found the sailor at dusk exactly where she had calculated he would be. He was weak but still alive, and he was taken back to the ship, where he made a full recovery.