In October, Capt. Katharine Sweeney won a gender discrimination suit against Washington state.
Sweeney won her suit against the state’s Board of Pilotage Commissioners and was awarded a $3.6 million settlement. The deadline for appealing the verdict was Nov. 12, but as of Nov. 5 that decision had not been made, according to Peggy Larson, executive director of the Board of Pilotage Commissioners in Seattle. Larson declined to comment on the case. The jury trial was held in King County Superior Court during August and September.
Sweeney had worked her way up the ranks to captain at Matson Navigation Co., where she commanded container vessels for seven years, according to news reports on KING and KOMO television in Seattle. She was just one of three women in the world to hold this position, but her ultimate goal was to be a Puget Sound pilot. “Being a captain is great, but being a pilot is the end of the line,” she told KING. In 2007, she enrolled in the pilot training program run by the Board of Pilotage Commissioners, the first woman to do so. At the end of her training, the commission voted against issuing her a pilot’s license. Board chairman Capt. Harry Dudley told KOMO that the board decided, “She would not be a safe pilot.”
Sweeney’s attorneys said the commission’s training program is characterized by nepotism and is a “good old boy network.” Sweeney claimed that her performance in the program was equal to that of the men who received licenses, but that the training committee, which was made up entirely of men, held her to a different standard.
Sweeney was master of the container ship Mokihana in July 2002 when she diverted course to rescue a crew of Japanese fishermen whose boat had sunk in a typhoon. She and her crew were presented an AOTOS Mariners’ Plaque in 2003 for the rescue.
— Bruce Buls
