A delirious captain, a mutinous first mate, a ship going down in 50ft waves…and the

 On September 5, 1856, Mary Ann Patten, 19 and pregnant, climbed onto the deck of her husband’s clipper ship and addressed the crew in a quavering voice.

Neptune’s Car was in dire straits, stranded near Cape Horn, in the most dangerous stretch of water known to man – or, indeed, woman.

Mary Ann Patten – first female commander of an American merchant vessel 

Mary Ann’s husband, Captain Joshua ­Patten, was lying in a delirious fever in the cabin below. The first mate was in leg irons following an attempted mutiny. The second mate, while loyal, was illiterate and unable to use the maps to plot a course out of the storm that was currently throwing Neptune’s Car around as if it were a toy.

The rest of the crew consisted of the usual ragbag of desperados. At that moment it seemed inevitable that the ship would go down with all hands on board.

There was, though, one hope. Although this was only her second time on a round-the-world journey, young Mrs Patten had taught herself how to navigate by studying her ­husband’s charts and instruments.

And so, standing on the soaking deck with a loaded pistol hidden under her oilskin for ­protection, she asked her husband’s crew to trust her to take command of the ship and bring it to safety.

The crew, aka ‘vagrants with ­attitude’, burst out in spontaneous applause. They would follow the she-Captain to the ends of the Earth.

In this thrilling, painstaking book Mazzeo recounts one of the most celebrated ­episodes in American maritime history.

An accomplished sailor herself, she’s the perfect person to explain how ­terrifying it must have been to be aboard Neptune’s Car as it was buffeted by 50ft waves at the bottom of the world.

Mary Ann had studied the tides and knew that trying to plot a course out of the storm would only result in the ship ­breaking up.

So she took the brave ­decision to allow the 60-knot winds to blow Neptune’s Car south-east towards Antarctica into calmer conditions, before making a sharp turn northwards.

Neptune’s Car 

The plan seemed to be working until huge icebergs, 200ft high, loomed into view, threatening a ­collision that would crush the ship in seconds.

Mazzeo’s great achievement is to make us feel the deathly quiet, the creak of timbers, the silent prayers – not to mention the awful sick ­feeling that comes with not knowing if you are going to drown in the next five minutes.

And yet, against all odds, Mary Ann’s navigational skills saved the day. The deadly icebergs receded towards the horizon and on November 15, 1856, Neptune’s Car limped into San Francisco.

Captain Joshua Patten, still barely conscious, was stretchered ashore alongside his wife, who by now was eight months pregnant.

As well as having a fine grasp of the seascape, Mazzeo is an ace historian and paints a vivid picture of the ­Pattens’ world.

Both had been born into sea-­ faring families, yet they were also modern people, determined to take advantage of new trends in ­­maritime capitalism.

Neptune’s Car was one of an elite cohort of ‘super clippers’, with tall masts and more than a dozen sails and narrow hulls.

These ships were built for speed rather than safety but, above all, they were built to make money.

Ferrying valuable cargos of tea and silk around the world, these super clippers operated like a kind of ocean-going FedEx or Amazon.

There were huge profits to be made, not just by the ship­owners, but by their captains too. Indeed, Mazzeo explains that the Pattens were looking ­forward to a bumper payday once ­Neptune’s Car docked in San Francisco and unloaded its ­valuable cargo.

To add an extra excitement, not to mention profit, Neptune’s Car was engaged in a race with several other around-the-world clippers. If Captain Patten ­managed to beat his rivals, there would be an extra bonus.

Mazzeo reckons that the Pattens ‘stood to clear, in modern terms, a sum of well over a million dollars’.

The young couple planned to return to Joshua’s native Maine, where they would build a ­farmhouse, raise a family and never worry about money – or the sea – again.

What was unusual about ­Neptune’s Car was that the captain had chosen to bring his wife with him.

Crews were not generally happy about having women on board, convinced that a ‘hen frigate’ would bring bad luck.

But Joshua and Mary Ann were deeply in love, and the idea of months apart was too much to ­contemplate.

There were, though, strict conditions. As Captain’s wife, Mary Ann was not permitted to walk around the decks or talk to anyone apart from her husband and the first and second mate. All of which explains why, as a break from her usual needlework, Mary Ann had passed the endless time by learning how to read maps, study the tides and steer using the stars.

For a while after docking in San Francisco it looked as though the Pattens would get their happy ending. The story of how the pretty, diminutive captain’s wife had stepped in to save her ­husband’s ship quickly made headlines around the world.

As Mazzeo explains, young Mrs Patten was, for a spell, more famous than the nurse Florence Nightingale (the Crimean War had been in full spate).

Early feminists, beginning to campaign for the vote, held the brave captain’s wife up as an example of just what women were capable of when given the chance.

In interviews, Mary Ann modestly declared that she was simply doing her duty, which only made the world love her even more.

But then reality kicked in. Joshua Patten had sustained ­permanent brain damage from weeks in a near-coma and had to be admitted to an asylum, where he died a few days later.

F oster & Nickerson, owners of Neptune’s Car, refused to pay Mary Ann her husband’s ­salary or his ­percentage of the profits.

Eight months pregnant and a widow, she was now nearly ­destitute. In the end, and thanks to enormous public pressure, Mary Ann, now an international ­celebrity, was able to scrape back a fraction of the fortune owing to her.

Mazzeo has written a white-knuckle ride of a book. You will finish it vowing never to set foot on a sea-going craft again.

You will also, though, thank your lucky stars that, these days, women are able to pilot trains, planes and, indeed, ships around the world while also being paid exactly what they deserve.