I Was a 19-Year-Old Virgin When I Was Raped by a 60+ Year-Old 1st Engineer Aboard a Maersk Ship During Sea Year. I Know Several Other Current USMMA Students Who Were Also Raped During Sea Year.

*This account was submitted to MLAA by the victim. She is a member of the class of 2022 at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy*

There are more than 50 young, strong, amazing women in my class at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy where I am currently in my Senior/1st Class year. I have not spoken to a single one of those women who has told me that she has not been sexually harassed, sexually assaulted, or degraded at some point during the last 3 years at the Academy or during Sea Year. Most people, and even the leaders of our school, do not seem to understand how serious this problem is, especially at sea.

In our class of approximately 50 women, I know of at least 5 women who were forcibly raped during Sea Year. And I am one of them. When I returned to the Academy after completing my Sea Year, I became a Victim’s Advocate (VA), and the number of girls who have come to me to report a case of sexual assault is absolutely sickening. Since returning from sea I have learned of additional women in lower classes who were also forcibly raped during Sea Year, and I know that in total there are at least 10 young women currently enrolled at the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy who were raped during their Sea Year. And there are definitely cases I don’t know about.

This is completely unacceptable. I want to tell the story of my own rape to bring attention to this issue, and to show other women who have been through something like I went through that they are not alone.

My story begins after plebe year when I was sent to a Maersk ship to start my Sea Year. I was 19 years old, and I was excited to finally leave the Academy and go out to work on a real ship. As an engine cadet, I worked in the engine room, and I quickly began noticing a difference in the way men were treated versus how I was treated. My Sea Partner was a male engine cadet and a good friend of mine, and it was obvious that the engineers treated him differently than me. 

The 1st Assistant Engineer, a man in his 60’s, often made derogatory comments about women and told me early in the trip that “you should know your place, and it ain’t out here. A woman’s place is in the home.” The 1st was my supervisor and the 2nd in command of the engine department, and I was afraid of him. He was creepy, made romantic passes at me and made crude and demeaning comments about me in front of other members of the engine department. It was a difficult work environment, to say the least, and not what I had expected Sea Year to be like.

After I had been on the ship for around 50 days, we pulled into a port in the Middle East where the officers bought a lot of alcohol and brought it back to the ship. It was going to be a 2-week passage at sea until we reached the next port, and I guess they didn’t want to run out of booze while at sea.  

On the first day back at sea after leaving that port, the engineering officers began drinking heavily. In the afternoon/early evening they were all hanging around the pool, which was outside, drinking for at least an hour. My Sea Partner was drinking with them. I did not want anything to do with them or the drinking, but they sent my Sea Partner to my room to bring me down to the pool.

When he arrived at my door, I could tell he was already drunk, so drunk I was actually worried for his safety. I told him I would come down, but I never went to meet them at the pool. Eventually they all came inside and went to the 1st Engineer’s room to continue their party. My Sea Partner and I went to the 1st’s room around 20:00. 

When we entered the 1st’s large stateroom I saw the Chief Engineer, the 1st, and the 2nd Engineer (A little later, the 3rd engineer also arrived). Everyone was drunk and being loud, they had loud music playing and the room was filled with cigarette smoke. They immediately began trying to get us drunk.

Until I arrived at Kings Point, I had never drank alcohol in my life. And while I did drink a few times during Plebe year, I was not good at drinking, and I knew that. I’m a smaller girl and these men were all much bigger than me, and could consume more alcohol than me. But my Sea Partner enjoyed drinking, and he was a man, and I felt pressure to fit in, to prove myself, and to be one of the guys—or whatever.  

They had all kinds of hard liquor and a lot of very strong beer. I remember there was Maker’s Mark and Bacardi. As soon as I arrived the engineers began forcing shots of liquor on me and my sea partner. They were like animals, drinking straight out of the bottles of liquor, doing shot after shot, being extremely annoying, yelling and laughing and making a lot of noise, and practically shoving shots down our throats. I remember repeatedly wondering if they were being so loud that the Captain would come down to find out what was going on. But I don’t think he would have even cared. Everyone knew the Captain was a big drinker himself and that he tolerated the engineers’ drinking.

My Sea Partner became sick, and went into the 1st’s bathroom where he threw up into the toilet, and I remember the 1st became very angry about the puking and remember him yelling at my Sea Partner. Everything was becoming hazy for me and one of the last things I remember from that room was my Sea Partner throwing up and the 1st saying, “we gotta put this one to bed.” 

I don’t remember my Sea Partner actually leaving the room, but later, as I was trying to piece things together, the 2nd and 3rd Engineers told me that they took my Sea Partner to his room after he got sick. Around that time, I blacked out. My best estimate is that within an hour of arriving in the 1st’s room I drank the equivalent of 8-10 shots of hard liquor. My Sea Partner had much more than that to drink as he had been drinking with them for hours.

Around 6 or 7 AM I woke up in my bed completely naked, and began freaking out. My clothes were all over the floor and they were soaking wet, I had a massive hangover, there was blood on my sheets, and I knew immediately that I had been raped. I was a virgin and had been saving myself, and as soon as I woke up I could feel that I was very sore and knew exactly what had happened.

I was in a state of total shock. For at least 20 minutes I sat there on my bed just looking at everything, looking at the scene, looking at my wet clothes, trying to piece together a timeline, and trying to process the fact that I had actually been raped. I was completely terrified. I was the only girl on the ship, and we had about two weeks until we even reached the next port. As I sat there on my bed panicking and trying to piece together what had happened, I only had a few memories from the time I was blacked out.

They were like glimpses through the blackout. The first powerful memory was being in the shower in my bathroom. I was lying on the floor of the shower completely naked, with water falling on me, and the 1st Engineer was standing above me, fully clothed.

The second memory was being in my bed and the 1st Engineer was on top of me and forcing me to kiss him, and I could still almost smell the gross scent of smoke on his breath and I remembered thinking about how gross the smell of the cigarette smoke on his breath was. And then I remember watching him take his clothes off beside my bed, and I remember him standing over me and forcing his penis into my mouth.  

I don’t remember being raped, but I know it happened, and I know the 1st Engineer did it.

Sometime after 7AM, while I was still sitting on my bed in shock, my phone rang. It was the 2nd Engineer calling to tell me not to worry about coming to work that day and to take the day off. He made a joke about how much I’d had to drink the night before. They also told my Sea Partner to take the day off. That same day I went to my Sea Partner’s room and I told him the 1st Engineer had raped me.

I was saying “this guy raped me, this guy raped me,” over and over again and telling him that I didn’t want to be on the ship any more. 

“Do you want to report it?” he asked me.  He was sincere that he would help me report it if I wanted to.

But I told him that I didn’t think anyone would believe me. I was 19 years old and had been drinking and the 1st Engineer was one of the top 4 officers on the ship. All of the top 4 officers were like best friends and had been sailing together for years. I didn’t trust or really even know the Captain, and he was a big drinker and I thought he would probably stand up for the 1st. If it came down to the word of a 19-year-old cadet versus the word of one of his best friends who was he going to believe?

And I was also experiencing an overwhelming amount of shame and guilt, and I worried about getting both myself and my sea partner sent back home and messing up his Sea Year and getting him involved in an investigation. I didn’t know what to do.

Later that day while I was sitting in my room with the door locked, I received a phone call from my rapist. 

“I think we really need to talk,” the 1st kept saying. “Please, we really need to talk.” I told him I didn’t want to talk to him, and he kept telling me to come to his room to talk. But I was terrified of him. Finally, I put my knife in my pocket and went to my Sea Partner’s room. 

“The 1st is making me come to his room to talk to him,” I told him. “If I’m not back here in 10 minutes, come get me.”

My Sea Partner agreed that he would.

As soon as I arrived in the 1st’s room he told me to close the door and take a seat. 

“I think we need to go over some stuff that happened last night,” he said.

“You forced yourself on me last night,” I said. 

“No, that’s not what happened,” he said. 

Then he began trying to turn everything against me.

“I just helped you back to your room, that’s all,” he said. “And whatever you believed happened, you wouldn’t tell the captain would you?”

It was clear that he was threatening me, and I was very afraid. I didn’t say anything to him in response.

Then he scooted his chair closer to mine until he was right up next to me, placed his hand on my thigh, and leaned in to my face.

“Ok, well you just know that we mariners get lonely out here at sea, ok? Let me know if you ever want to do anything. If you ever want to make something work, I won’t tell anyone.”

It was unbelievable. I just stood up and began quickly walking towards the door.

“Ok, whatever. No one is ever going to believe you,” he said to me as I was leaving his room.

After I left the 1st’s room I immediately went to my Sea Partner’s room. We locked his door and I broke down in tears telling him what had just happened in the 1st’s room.

Neither of us knew what to do. It was awful. I did not feel safe on that ship, but we had two more weeks until we even reached the next port, and I had 50 more days I was supposed to stay aboard. There weren’t many options. 

Back in my room I decided that the only thing I could do was to tough it out. No one was going to believe me, and toughing it out was the only option I felt like I had. I was trapped. 

But I told myself that I would never allow myself to be alone with the 1st or to work alone with him again. The next 50 days were horrible. I had to continue working for the gross man who raped me, had to see him all the time, every day. And every man who had been in that room drinking that night knew that something had happened to me. I know they all knew, even if they didn’t want to admit it to themselves.

The 2nd Engineer, who was about 35, told me later that he had helped the 1st Engineer bring me to my room and that it was the 2nd’s idea to put me under running water. He said it was something he had learned in the Navy and that he thought it would be funny. But he said that I was fully clothed when in the shower and that he left me with the 1st. 

But what did he think was going to happen when he left me nearly unconscious in my stateroom in soaking wet clothes, alone with the 1st Engineer?

After I was raped, everything became different in the engine room. There was a tension and an awkwardness that was very apparent. My Sea Partner began standing up to the 1st when the 1st would say things about me or try to get me to work alone with him. When the 1st tried to get me to work on some project alone with him, my Sea Partner would say, “No, I’d be more comfortable if I was working with you instead of her.” For a cadet to stand up to the 1st like that and for the 1st to back down was an unmistakable sign that the 1st had done something to me. Everyone knew. 

And the 1st may have even bragged about what he had done to me to the other officers. One day I was standing in the passageway outside of the officer’s mess where the officers were eating and I heard the Chief Mate say, “how many people do you think [my name] has slept with on this ship!?” They all began laughing. 

That ship was hell. But eventually I finished Sea Year and came back to the Academy where I became a Certified Victim’s Advocate (VA). I wanted to help other victims. But that’s when I began to realize how big this problem is, and how difficult it is to advocate for victims at Kings Point and in the maritime industry. 

This year I put together a resume to apply for jobs after graduation, and I put “Victim’s Advocate” on my resume. When I went to a resume workshop at Kings Point I was told by two USMMA employees that I should take “Victim’s Advocate” off of my resume because, “It makes people in our line of work uncomfortable, and you wouldn’t want to do that.” That’s the mindset of this school and this industry.

I left it on my resume. 

In order to even become a VA I had to interview with Jack Buono, the Superintendent of the USMMA. I was sitting in his office in Wiley Hall when the Admiral said to me, “I know victim’s advocacy is a big thing at this school, and it’s important, but I don't think any sexual misconduct problem is happening while I’ve been in charge.”

I was stunned, and I replied, “Well, how big of a problem do you think it is? How many people do you think are affected by this issue?”

Buono replied, “maybe 5% of students.”

“Sir,” I said, “I cannot tell you a single girl at this school who has not experienced one of those things.”

His face began to turn red, and he changed the subject.

It has taken what feels like a long time to get over what happened to me and to move past it. My Sea Partner, a few friends, and my family are the only ones I’ve told about being raped.  It took me a long time to move past the shame and the guilt, but I’ve realized that what happened to me was not my fault.

On the morning before I was raped, I didn’t wake up with any desire to drink alcohol or any desire to get completely wasted. I didn’t wake up wanting to lose my virginity to a gross old man who was more than 40 years older than me and who had been sexually harassing me. He did those things to me against my will. And I was too young and too powerless to stop him, and too afraid to report him.

But something has to change. It's terrifying to share my story, even anonymously. But I think that the only way we are going to make change happen is to get our stories out there so that people can understand how serious and widespread these problems are.

I sincerely hope this helps someone.

—Midshipman X