On Saturday, July 30, 1966, The Fiji Times highlighted the arrival of a 38-foot ketch in Suva, noting that its owner who also captained the vessel was a woman undertaking a Pacific cruise.
She was known as “a woman in a man’s world”, and her name was Louise Myers of Honululu.
Ms Myers began sailing on American lakes when she was about seven years old.
She bought the ketch Porpoise in the year 1964 and started her voyage the month before the article was published, sailing from Honululu to Apia and Niuafo’ou, and then to Suva.
“I can’t see any obvious reason why there are not more women skippers. There is nothing particularly difficult about it,” Ms Myers told a The Fiji Times reporter.
“I sometimes startle the shore authorities when they ask to see the captain. I have to tell them several times that I am the captain before they are convinced.”
On board the Porpoise with her were Gordon Hooper and Peter Quackenbush of California who were crew members, and her youngest child Chuck who was aged 11 at the time.
Ms Myers said her orders were well obeyed by the crew members even though it came from a woman.
The Porpoise stayed in Suva for several weeks before they sailed to some of the outer islands.
Ms Myers, who did all the navigating, planned to set a course for Pago Pago after leaving Fiji.
Her plans thereafter were to sail to Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, New Guinea, the Philippines, and Japan in two years before heading back to their home in Honululu.
