For the first time in its 170-year history, Southampton-based shipping line Cunard has appointed the company’s first female captain as master of the 90,000-ton vessel, Queen Victoria.
The first task for Captain Inger Klein Olsen after she assumed command was to take the ship, without passengers, to drydock in Germany for a planned refit.
However, next Wednesday, 43-year-old Captain Olsen, who was born and brought up in the Faroe Islands, will be on the bridge as the ship sails from Southampton with a full complement of passengers.
Captain Olsen joined Cunard in 1997 as First Officer on board Caronia and then in 2001 she transferred to the Seabourn fleet – at that time part of Cunard. She sailed on Seabourn Sun and Seabourn Spirit being promoted to Staff Captain on Seabourn Pride in 2003.
Following some years with other companies within the Carnival group, Captain Olsen, who now lives in Denmark, returned to Cunard in August this year as Deputy Captain of Queen Victoria.
Cunard’s president and managing director Peter Shanks said: “While we are far from being the first shipping company to have a female captain, it is nonetheless noteworthy when such a long-established British institution as Cunard makes a break with its captaincy tradition.
“But as Mark Twain drily observed, ‘the folks at Cunard wouldn’t appoint Noah himself as captain until he had worked his way up through the ranks’. Inger has certainly done that, and we are delighted to welcome her as our first woman driver.’’
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