Ellen Prentiss learned to sail on her father’s schooner as a child. “He taught Ellen how to hoist a sail and splice a rope. He taught her how to tack against the wind and turn the wheel.” And he taught her to use a sextant, something many sailors never learned, let alone children, and a girl at that. When Ellen grew up she married a fellow lover of the sea. And when her husband, Perkins Creesy, became captain of a ship called the Flying Cloud, Ellen was his navigator. As they raced to set a new world record for a trip from New York to San Francisco, Ellen pushed the ship on a swift course. The mast broke, they got caught in the windless doldrums, only to emerge into a storm in the dangerous waters of Cape Horn. Ellen had to move beyond self-doubt and trust her knowledge, her training, and her understanding of how to read the sea. In the end, the ship set a new record of eighty-nine days for the journey. Tracey Fern’s lively, informative account of this mid-nineteenth-century woman’s singular accomplishment is paired with Emily Arnold McCully’s fine illustrations. An author’s note provides additional information on Ellen and shipping in that era. (Ages 7–10)

Ellen Prentiss's papa said she was born with saltwater in her veins, so he gave her sailing lessons and taught her how to navigate. As soon as she met a man who loved sailing like she did, she married him. When her husband was given command of a clipper ship custom-made to travel quickly, she knew that they would need every bit of its speed for their maiden voyage: out of New York City, down around the tip of Cape Horn, and into San Francisco, where the Gold Rush was well under way. In a time when few women even accompanied their husbands onboard, Ellen Prentiss navigated their ship to set the world record for speed along that route.

A Margaret Ferguson Book