South African Navy Commander Makes History

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

Zimasa Mabela grew up under apartheid in a South African village just two hours’ drive from the ocean, but it wasn’t until age 18 that she first saw the sea.

Now 38, she is the first black woman to command a South African naval vessel. Lt. Cmdr. Mabela recalled that her first visit to the beach coincided with the end of white rule in 1994 — and she caught the historic wave of change that followed.

“I wasn’t terrified of the water,” she said, gazing out from the bridge of her sleek minehunter, the SAS Umhloti. “In my village there was a swimming pool at the church where us kids could swim.”

Mabela’s desire for a life at sea came later, when she was at university studying for a degree in education. She attended a presentation by the Navy and was captivated by the slogan: “Join the Navy and see the world.”

“I thought, where else would I get the opportunity to see the world?”

She signed up in 1999 at age 22 as a radio operator, and the Navy has so far lived up to its promise. She has traveled to places as diverse as India, Uruguay, St. Helena island and Canada. The ship she took command of in August 2015 is berthed in Cape Town’s historic Simon’s Town harbor, South Africa’s main naval base.

Men make up the bulk of the ship’s crew of 54, but Mabela says her gender has not been a problem. “They have accepted me very well. If I give an order, it is an order,” she said with a warm smile and a glint of steel in her eyes.