Master & Commander: Lisa Rules The Waves

Lisa Hunn (47) Always Knew She’d Be The First Kiwi Woman To Helm A Frigate.

- Julie Jacobson

I joke that I’m married to the Navy. Frankly, people who balance families blow my mind – I don’t know how they do it.

Still, I feel like I am a supermum in a way. I have to worry about 178 people. When one of the ship’s company doesn’t get back to the ship on time when we’re in a foreign port, I think the worst. That doesn’t happen often, and they might just have fallen asleep or be running late or their phone’s gone flat, but it always gives me a heart attack.

We’re just back from Malaysia, taking part in an exercise we do every year. It’s a rehearsal at sea, if you like – of some of the activities we would need to deliver if we were to defend the Malaysian Peninsula and the South China Sea.

Before that, it was the Rim of the Pacific exercise – the world’s largest international maritime warfare exercise. For the final battle we were in command of the opposing force, so we led a number of ships against the USS Carl Vinson aircraft carrier, which was excellent – and fun. We made good bad guys!

The highlight was winning the gunnery competition – it’s called the rodeo – where you try to land five shells the closest to a sea target 6.5km from the ship.