Nek­isha Alexan­der-Cae­sar

Nek­isha.alexan­der@guardian.co.tt

It on­ly takes one!

One woman at the helm,

can steer the course

for many oth­ers to fol­low.

Be­ing the sole fe­male on a 250-foot ves­sel might seem in­tim­i­dat­ing but Sabeena Poon­wassie has no de­sire to aban­don ship. The 25-year-old sailor joins the ranks of less than 2% of women hold­ing roles in this in­dus­try. Sabeena not­ed that this can seem over­whelm­ing in the ini­tial phas­es, she says “It takes a bit of strength to hold your own space on a team of men, but it’s not im­pos­si­ble.” Sabeena spends her days keep­ing a nav­i­ga­tion­al watch at sea while man­ag­ing the deck op­er­a­tions and over­see­ing car­go op­er­a­tions. She is al­so re­spon­si­ble for the life­sav­ing and fire­fight­ing el­e­ments of the ves­sel.

The po­et­ry of a ship har­mo­nious­ly danc­ing with the waves might have giv­en in­spi­ra­tion to the sailor who once as­pired to be a writer. How­ev­er, she was de­ter­mined to find both suc­cess and hap­pi­ness in her ca­reer and found it dif­fi­cult with tra­di­tion­al ca­reer choic­es. The idea of work­ing on the wa­ter seemed like an ad­ven­ture for Sabeena and it was al­so a huge plus to be able to work and trav­el si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly. So, she char­tered her jour­ney to live the life of a Sea­far­er.

TRAN­SI­TION­ING FROM

LAND TO SEA

With dreams of sunkissed skin and star­ry nights un­der the moon­light call­ing, Sabeena en­rolled in an eight-week pro­gram in 2014. The pro­gram was an ini­tia­tive by the Mar­itime In­dus­try De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion aimed at both the shore based and sea go­ing as­pects of the ma­rine in­dus­try. At the end of the pro­gram, Sabeena was com­plete­ly en­am­oured with the seago­ing as­pects of the mar­itime in­dus­try and de­cid­ed to pur­sue a ca­reer on the wa­ter. She be­gan sail­ing as a cadet in 2019 to ob­tain the hands-on train­ing re­quired for her li­cense.

Short­ly af­ter she re­turned from sea her fa­ther passed away quite sud­den­ly. This was an in­cred­i­bly low and chal­leng­ing time for Sabeena. The idea of go­ing back to sea was de­press­ing and she felt guilty for the time she missed be­fore the pass­ing of her fa­ther. She soon learned that her job took her away for long pe­ri­ods of time and lim­its con­nec­tions with loved ones. While she strug­gled with this re­al­i­ty at the time, she was en­cour­aged by her fam­i­ly to keep pur­su­ing her ca­reer.

PER­SE­VER­ANCE AND PROGRESS

It took Sabeena eight years to get a li­cense and many times, she thought to give up and try some­thing else. But she tru­ly want­ed to sail and de­cid­ed she would con­tin­ue work­ing to­wards her goal de­spite ob­sta­cles. She ad­vis­es “In a ca­reer like this you have to be able to ac­cept fail­ure, over­come ob­sta­cles and per­se­vere re­gard­less.”

Just one month af­ter be­ing li­censed, Sabeena got an ex­cel­lent job op­por­tu­ni­ty. She is cur­rent­ly sail­ing on a Dy­nam­ic Po­si­tion Class 2, Off­shore Sup­ply Ves­sel. The sailor plans to up­grade her li­cense to Chief Mate Un­lim­it­ed and work up to the rank of Cap­tain. When off-ves­sel, Sabeena en­joys cook­ing and bak­ing. She is al­so ob­sessed with an­i­mals, hav­ing spent the ma­jor­i­ty of her time be­fore sail­ing work­ing at a Vet­eri­nary clin­ic. She likes read­ing non­fic­tion and self-help books and is con­sid­er­ing tak­ing up golf.

ABOVE BOARD

Her ad­vice for women in­ter­est­ed in the ma­rine in­dus­try, when plot­ting your course be sure to “do your re­search and make a plan for what you want to achieve. Make a plan for when the first plan falls through.” Sur­round­ing your­self with peo­ple that sup­port you and seek men­tor­ship from those you hope to em­u­late in your own ca­reers is an­oth­er tip of­fered by the sailor. She notes that in this in­dus­try per­se­ver­ance and grit are two of the most valu­able qual­i­ties to pos­sess.

She adds “Speak up for your­self and push for the op­por­tu­ni­ties you de­serve but al­ways do so with in­tegri­ty. Life is not a race or a com­pe­ti­tion, and com­par­ing your­self to oth­ers with hurt you in the end.” Men­tal well­ness is al­so very high on Sabeena’s agen­da for those women al­ready in the in­dus­try. “Take care of your­self both men­tal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly, burn out is very re­al and hard to over­come.”

A few high­lights on Sabeena

• ↓Mem­ber of Women in Mar­itime Caribbean (WIMAC) As­so­ci­a­tion and the re­cip­i­ent of the WIMAC Woman on the Rise award

• ↓Unit­ed King­dom Mar­itime Coast­guard Agency Li­censed Of­fi­cer of the Watch (OOW)

• ↓Grad­u­ate of The Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad & To­ba­go Cen­tre for Mar­itime and Ocean Stud­ies

• ↓Dy­nam­ic Po­si­tion Op­er­a­tor (DPO)

• ↓Youth Coun­cil Mem­ber of the UK based NGO – The Nau­ti­cal In­sti­tute