Cunard's first female cruise ship captain.

Cunard's first female cruise ship captain.

Inger Olsen rose through Cunard's tradition-steeped ranks to become the cruise line's first female captain.

She signed on to a cargo ship at the age of 16, she wanted to earn some pocket money.

She was looking for a job after school and on weekends. At that point in her life she didn't have any idea what she wanted to do.  Olsen home is in Svendborg, Denmark.

Olsen grew up surrounded by water on the Faroe Islands, liked to travel and enjoyed the life at sea. What she didn't like was the cleaning duty her steward's job entailed. So she applied to become a cadet and joined the Cunard Line in 1997.

Olsen, 43 said, "I thought I'd do it for a few years and then go ashore and have a family, but one year led to another."

In December 2010, Captain Inger Olsen took the helm of the 90,000-ton luxury liner Queen Victoria to become one of only a few women cruise ship captains in the world.

"People have welcomed me all the way through," she said. "It's only been extremely positive."

Olsen said her voyage through the ranks has been mostly smooth sailing in fair weather.