Belinda Bennett MNM (born c.1977) is a cruise ship captain from Saint Helena. She is the first black woman to work as captain of a cruise ship.[1]
Belinda Bennett was born and grew up on Saint Helena, a British Overseas Territory in the South Atlantic Ocean. When she was 17 she took a job as a deck cadet on the RMS St Helena. She left after nine years in 2003, by which time she had risen to be Second Officer.[2] Bennett then worked on SS Delphine, a private charter yacht near Monaco, worked on ferries for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company and returned to school to take a masters.
Told that it would be hard for her to find work in the yachting industry as an over-educated black woman, she started working for Windstar Cruises as a Second Officer in 2005. She continued rising in rank, being made Captain of the MSY Wind Star,[1] and Windstar's first woman captain, in March 2016.[3]
In 2018 Bennett was awarded the Merchant Navy Medal for Meritorious Service.[4] [2]