Joy Sherman, the Yale Council of African Studies administrator, faced an enormous challenge while captaining a crew of sailing on a round-trip voyage.

The trip was from the (US) United States to Cuba and then back to US.

To complicate matters at the time of the voyage an element was added in the trip, the group was asked to depart in the middle of the night from a reef filled harbor and other obstacles. Sherman had not navigated this hurdle before and this made the thing more complicated. However, this complication creating elements did not de-motivate the crew. Sherman with her crew member completed the journey and created the history. They started the journey from Key West, Florida, reached in Havana and then took the journey back. By doing this, Sherman and crew have become the first all-female crew to complete the feat.

Sharing the experience of the voyage, a crew member of the team of Sherman, Ginny Jaeger said, “The trip was an excellent experience and Sherman was amazing. She was the youngest one in the team, but she used to hear everyone, very open and friendly.”

Sailor NYC hired Sherman as captain of a six-woman crew. She has to take the trip from Key West to Havana. Though, the distance of the 106 – mile was not very big, but Mother Nature did not forwarded its support for Sherman and her team member

The catamaran of Sherman was jolted by waves of 15-foots.

There was a constant rocking of the boat all through the night led Sherman as well as her team members suffer from seasickness. There was complete darkness and the team member only had visible light that was coming from the freighter ships in the sea. So, the trip was really hard, according to crew members, Sherman did not sleep for the whole night.