The Sea Captain's Wife: A True Story of Mutiny, Love, and Adventure at the Bottom of the World

The true story of the first female captain of a merchant ship and her treacherous navigation of Antarctica's deadly waters, from the New York Times bestselling author of The Widow Clicquot.

Summer, 1856. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, were young and ambitious. Both from New England seafaring families, they had already completed their first clipper-ship voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. If they could win the race to San Francisco that year, their dream of building a farm and a family might be within reach — and the price of that freedom was one last dangerous transit into the most treacherous waters in the world.

As their ship, Neptune’s Car, sailed down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua fell deathly ill and was confined to his bunk, delirious. The treacherous first mate, confined to the brig for insubordination, was agitating for mutiny. With no obvious option for a new captain, Mary Ann stepped into the breach and convinced the crew to support her, just as they slammed into a gale that would last 18 days. Determined to save the ship, the crew, and their future, she faced down the deadly waters of Drake’s Passage — finally giving Mary Ann Patten, the first woman to command a merchant vessel as captain, her due.