Sarah West

Sarah West (born 1972) is a retired Royal Navy officer, the first woman to be appointed to command a major warship in the Royal Navy.

West was born in Lincolnshire and studied mathematics at the University of Hertfordshire before entering Britannia Royal Naval College in September 1995. She joined the Royal Navy as a warfare officer. She also took a law degree whilst on active service in the Middle East and is an expert in large-scale naval planning, mine clearance, weapons systems and underwater warfare. She was trained on HMS Battleaxe, and , deployed in the Persian Gulf. West went on to join the minesweeper as a navigator in 1997, and later served as officer of the watch of HMS Sheffield and navigating officer of .

West went on to complete the Principal Warfare Officers' course, specialising in underwater warfare, and joined in 2003. She became Operations Officer in in 2004, and spent some time as the ship's executive officer. She was with Commander Amphibious Task Group from 2005 as the underwater warfare specialist, then at Permanent Joint Headquarters at Northwood from 2007, followed by work with the Middle East Operations Team. West left the ship during a seven-month deployment to the Caribbean in mid-2014, after allegations that she had had an affair with one of her officers. The Royal Navy was reported to be investigating the allegations. On 8 August 2014 the Navy announced that West had been removed from command, citing an "internal matter", and that she would be reappointed to another post.