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Tracy Edwards MBE and title sponsor of The Maiden Factor World Tour, DP World, the global logistics leader, are delighted to announce that the iconic yacht Maiden and her all-female crew will enter the 2023 Ocean Globe Race.

Maiden will take a break from her world tour, which began in September 2021, having covered nearly 30,000nm visiting 20 destinations and engaging with schools, charities and organisations as part of her mission to educate, empower and elevate girls, increasing their life and career choices and also raising money to fund girls’ educational projects around the world. The OGR will provide a great opportunity to amplify Maiden’s mission and the importance of educating all girls for better futures for all.

Maiden who is currently in Cape Town, SA, will sail back to the UK for final preparations for the September 2023 start, once again with a young female skipper and crew of up and coming sailors from around the world, who will no doubt inspire another generation of women and girls to follow their dreams.

With so many of the beautiful yachts from previous Whitbreads being rescued and restored, as has Maiden of course, it seems only fitting that they should be raced around the world again! Tracy Edwards MBE

In 1989, Tracy Edwards skippered the first all-female crew in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race, becoming the first woman to receive the Yachtsman of the Year Trophy.

At 11am on September 2, 1989, Maiden approached the start line for the Whitbread Round the World Race. They set off among the 22-strong fleet to begin the first leg to Uruguay, ultimately placing 3rd in their class. Although the girls were disappointed, the yachting press was astonished by their accomplishment.

After a three-week stopover, Maiden embarked on the 7,300-mile marathon from Uruguay to Australia. They opted for a southern route and faced numerous challenges, including icebergs, freezing temperatures, frostbite, contaminated gas, and a nine-day satellite signal outage. During the journey, two sailors from competitor yacht Creightons Naturally fell overboard, with one, Anthony Phillips, unable to be revived. Doctor Claire Russell stayed on Maiden’s radio for two days, providing guidance on how to keep the other man, Bart van den Dwey, alive.

Despite the treacherous conditions, Maiden arrived in Perth, Australia, ten days ahead of its nearest competitor and earned the Beefeater Trophy. They then made a short 14-day journey to New Zealand, winning that leg and extending their overall lead to 28 hours. Maiden underwent repairs and maintenance in New Zealand before setting off on the next Southern Ocean leg, around Cape Horn to Uruguay. Although the leg was difficult, the team persevered and arrived in Uruguay, where their Godmother, The Duchess of York, welcomed them.

The leg to Ft Lauderdale in Florida was not without its challenges, with Maiden finishing in third place.

Maiden embarked on its final leg to Southampton, surviving a tornado and the last five days without food, and arrived home to a hero’s welcome. They secured 2nd place overall in their class, the best result for a British boat in 17 years, and remain unbeaten to this day.

Tracy and her team faced formidable obstacles, including opposition and sexism, but still managed to secure victory in two of the most grueling legs of the course, ultimately placing second overall. This achievement marked a turning point for the sailing community, creating new opportunities for female competitors.

In recognition of her remarkable accomplishments, Tracy was awarded an MBE and became the first woman to receive the prestigious ‘Yachtsman of the Year’ trophy.

Sailing is in Heather Thomas ‘ blood, coming from a long line of mariners. Growing up in Otley, West Yorkshire, the sea was not close by, so Heather began her journey, dinghy sailing at the local lake, Otley Sailing Club, encouraged by her father. The Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation gave Heather her first taste of ocean sailing, with a bursary to compete in the Pacific Leg of the 15/16 Clipper Round the World Race. She has since worked in a variety of roles and vessels in the marine industry- from flotilla skipper to teaching young people in the Caribbean, delivering a yacht from the Galapagos to New Zealand, running flotilla holidays in the Ionian Islands and as Watch Leader for the Ocean Youth Trust North. Maiden has been a big inspiration to Heather throughout her sailing career, so to sail on her is a dream come true. Whilst on the Maiden programme she gained her RYA Yachtmaster Offshore (commercially endorsed) and loves inspiring young girls to dream big, a value that was instilled in her by her parents, who continue to be her biggest supporters.

Rachel Burgess is used to unexpected calls for help in the middle of the night, be it in the wilds of the Southern Ocean or as a vet of 12 years standing in remote locations. “It makes you appreciate the value of getting sleep when you can,” said Rachel. All the expertise of completing a Covid-interrupted Clipper Race Circumnavigation (2019-2022) as well as her long-standing involvement in veterinary practice in the UK as well as in Australia will be put to good use now that she is confirmed as being on board Maiden for the OGR. The 36 year old originally tried out in 2021 but simply wasn’t able to commit the time at that juncture. Now she can, and takes her place as Chief Mate, right-hand to skipper Heather. Rachel has a huge volume of experiences to call upon even though she did not get her first taste of sailing until she was 16 years old taking part in a Tall Ship expedition that went from Weymouth to Dublin via several other ports of call. She graduated from the University of Glasgow as a Bachelor of Veterinary Medicine in 2010. Rachel rekindled her passion for the open water when based in Newcastle on Australia’s eastern seaboard and has made a great fist of combining her working life with what she used to view as her hobby. Now she is committed full-time to Maiden for the OGR, looking forward to ‘the rawness of the ocean,’ although she does nurse a fear of ‘running out of Haribo.’ The huge swells of the Southern Ocean are nothing compared to that.

In 1979, the yacht now known as Maiden was originally designed by the accomplished boat designer Bruce Farr under the name DISQUE D’OR 3 for the Swiss Ocean Racing Club. The club sought a lightweight and easily maneuverable ocean racing yacht for extended passage races, including the 1981-82 Whitbread Round the World Race. Pierre Fehlmann, a well-known Swiss yachtsman who had also participated in the previous Whitbread Race, skippered the vessel. Maiden, then DISQUE D’OR 3, completed the race and secured 4th place overall in the 1981-82 Whitbread competition.

Tracy was compelled to sell Maiden at the end of the race.

In 2014, she received news that Maiden had been abandoned and was slowly deteriorating in the Seychelles. Determined to preserve this exceptional maritime treasure, she launched a fundraising campaign to acquire the vessel and bring her back to the UK. Three years later, in April 2017, Maiden was transported to Southampton and underwent a thorough renovation, giving rise to The Maiden Factor initiative.

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'maiden': groundbreaking 1989 sailing race for all-female crew.

Kenneth Turan

A new documentary tells the story of the first all-female crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World sailing race in 1989. The crew was led by a 24-year-old and the boat was called Maiden.

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With An All-Female Crew, 'Maiden' Sailed Around The World And Into History

by Dave Davies

• Movie Interviews

In the 1980s, Tracy Edwards dreamed of racing a sailboat around the world. But at the time, open ocean sailboat racing was a male-dominated sport. She was only able to sign on as a cook for an all-male team in the 1985-86 Whitbread Round the World Race, a grueling 33,000 mile endeavor.

Afterward, when she still wasn't able to crew, she decided to take matters into her own hands: "My mom always told me, 'If you don't like the way the world looks, change it,'" she says. "So I thought, OK, I will."

In 1989, Edwards, then 26-years-old, assembled an all-female crew to enter the Whitbread Round the World Race. The idea was unthinkable to many of the men in the world of yacht-racing, and backlash was intense.

"We had so much obstruction and criticism and anger," she says. "Guys used to say to us, with absolute certainty, 'You're going to die.'"

But Edwards didn't back down: "We all became very aware, as a crew, as a team, that we were fighting for all women, and actually anyone who's been told they can't do anything," she says.

Edwards and her 12-woman crew restored an old racing yacht, which they christened Maiden, and finished the nine-month race second in their class. Now, a new documentary, Maiden , retraces their voyage.

Interview Highlights

On restoring an old racing yacht while the male crews had new boats

We found an old, secondhand racing yacht with a pedigree. ... She was in a terrible state, and we put her on a ship and we brought her back to the U.K. and then I gave the girls sledgehammers and I said, "Right, take her apart," and we did. We stripped the inside of the boat. We stripped the deck. We took the mast out. We took everything apart. ...

This was also a bit of a first, because people didn't usually see women in shipyards. So that was an interesting situation. ... All these other guys had a shore team. They had brand new boats. So they didn't really need to do any work on them. And so they'd sit in a cafe and watch us as we were putting this boat together. ...

Although, as I say, there was a very nice part of that sort of, being part of this big Whitbread family, is that if you did go and ask for help, 99.9 percent of the time you would get it. You know, you might get a bit of a snide, "Ugh, you know if you need help ...," kind of thing, but you know, beggars can't be choosers.

But the great thing about doing what we did the way we did it was we learned everything we needed to know about the boat. We put every single item into that boat, onto that boat. We painted her. We put the rig in. We did the rigging. We did the electronics, the plumbing, the [navigation] station. ... So when we put Maiden in the water, I would say that we, as a crew, knew our boat better than any other team in the race.

On the media's reaction to an all-female crew

We weren't surprised that there was resistance to an all-female crew in the race. Sailing is one of the last bastions of patriarchy. ... It is so entrenched. We're a maritime nation. It's entrenched in our history, in our warfare, in our culture, and it is extremely male-dominated. ... So I wasn't surprised there was resistance, but I was shocked at the level of anger there was that we wanted to do this, because why is this making you angry? We're only going out there and doing what we want to do.

On how at the time she didn't think of herself as a feminist — and said so in an interview — and why she changed her mind

In the '80s, "feminist" was an accusation. It wasn't a nice title. It had all sorts of horrible connotations, and really, it had been made into a word that women should be ashamed of — I think with deliberate reason. ... I was very young. I was 23, 24 ... [and] I didn't want people not to like me. You care very much, at that age, that people like you. ...

But I do remember [after that interview] my mum said to me, "I am so surprised that you don't think you're a feminist, and I'm not going to tell you what you should say, but I think you need to have a bit of a think about that one."

And then when we got to New Zealand and we won that leg [of the race] and we were getting the same stupid, crass, banal questions that we had on every other leg, I just thought, you know what? I think this is bigger than us, and bigger than Maiden, and bigger than anything we've been tackling. This is about equality. And I think I am a huge, fat feminist. I think I absolutely am! And I stood up for the first time in my life and I said something that might hurt me and might make me not likable, and I took pride in it, and it was an extraordinary experience.

On how her experience with a male crew was different than the female crew

[Male-run boats are] very smelly. It's very messy. There's a lot of swearing and then there are days when guys don't talk to each other. What is that? So that was very weird. A lot of tension, testosterone, egos. I mean, it was an interesting experience, that nine months, [the] first time and last time I'd ever been with 17 men and sort of watching them in their environments, if you like, their natural habitat. ...

Then, doing an all-female crew, then I noticed, wow, there's a huge difference between a group of women and a group of men. ... I prefer sailing around the world with an all-female crew. I prefer sailing with women anyway — much cleaner. We do tend to wash, even if it was in cold, salt water. More use of deodorant as well, I have noticed. But we were always chatting, always talking. ... We did talk the whole way 'round the world. I don't think there's one subject that we didn't cover in depth inside, outside and backwards.

Women are kinder to each other, and in a much more obvious way. We're actually more nurturing and caring, I think. And if you saw someone scared or worried or anxious or a bit down, there'd always be someone that would put their arm around your shoulder and say, "Cuppa tea?"

On the conditions on the Southern Ocean near the South Pole

Your body starts to deteriorate as soon as you cross the start line. Pain and cold are the quickest ways to lose weight. You can get frostbite in your fingers and toes. It's minus 20, minus 30 degrees below freezing. You are constantly damp because salt water doesn't dry. So the girls up on deck would be miserable — cold, wet, miserable. Freezing fingers and toes. Tons of clothing on so you can barely move. The food's revolting. So you just shovel it down your throat as quickly as possible and and try and get as much sleep as possible with this four [hour]-on/four-off watch system. It's also a sensory deprivation. There's no sun. There's no blue sky, it's gray, and the boat's gray, and everything's gray.

On Maiden's second-place finish in the Whitbread Round the World Race

We came second in our class overall, which is the best result for British boat since 1977, and actually hasn't been beaten yet, but that didn't mean much to us at the time. When you finish a race like, that you go through a mixture of emotions. Obviously if you're winning it's all happiness and wonderful and fantastic. We hadn't won; we've come second, and it took me a long time to come to terms with that, because second is nowhere in racing. But as Claire [Warren, the ship doctor] says in the film — and she's very right — there was a bigger picture, and the bigger picture was what we had achieved.

On the reception when Maiden arrived in England

It was sunrise. There wasn't really that much wind, and we were so close to ... [the] final stretch, and as we were going up Southampton Water, hundreds of boats came out to meet us and they would come towards us, turn round, and start sailing with us. So the final two hours of the boat was two hours I will never forget as long as I live, surrounded by thousands of people on hundreds of boats throwing flowers and cheering. It was absolutely amazing. And crossing the finishing line we knew, OK, we hadn't won, but we had sailed into the history books, and we are first, and you can't beat being first to do something.

Lauren Krenzel and Thea Chaloner produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the Web.

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With an all-female crew, 'maiden' sailed around the world and into history.

The remarkable story of the first all-female crew to compete in an around-the world sailing race. In 1989, 26 year old skipper Tracy Edwards set out on what was an unthinkable journey for a woman - to sail the 33,000 mile Whitbread Around the World Race. Her story and that of her crew is told in the documentary 'Maiden.'

• Tracy Edwards

Contributor

• Dave Davies

Related Topics

• Society & Culture

Other segments from the episode on June 27, 2019

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TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. In the 1980s, the world of open ocean sailboat racing was pretty much all male. That is, until our guest, Tracy Edwards, decided she'd assemble an all-female crew to enter the grueling and dangerous 33,000 mile Whitbread Round the World Race. As you'll hear, the idea was unthinkable to most of men in the world of yacht racing and the journalists who covered them. The remarkable story of Edwards and her crew is told in a new documentary directed by Alex Holmes titled "Maiden," which was also the name of the yacht she sailed in the race. The film opens in theaters tomorrow.

Tracy Edwards had an unhappy childhood after her father died and her mom remarried. She ran away from home as a teenager, made her way to Greece and fell in love with sailing. She wanted so badly to compete that she signed on as a cook for an all-male crew on a Round the World Race. Though she learned a lot about sailing, she had no luck getting on as a crew member. She talked about her story with FRESH AIR's Dave Davies.

DAVE DAVIES, BYLINE: Well, Tracy Edwards, welcome to FRESH AIR. So as I gather from the documentary, you decided you're never going to get accepted as a crew member on a Round the World Race. So you decided, well, you're just going to start your own. How did you pull that off?

TRACY EDWARDS: Yes. I did look at the world of sailing and thought I need to change the shape of this because I don't fit in here. And so, you know, my mom always told me, if you don't like the way the world looks, change it. So I thought, OK, I will. I thought the easiest way - (laughter) that makes me laugh - the easiest way to do that would just be to put an all-female crew together. And, you know, we'd just prove we can do it and everyone will accept it and everything will be fine.

But that was far from what happened. You know, we had so much obstruction and criticism and anger, which I found really quite strange. You know, why would you be angry that we want to sail around the world? It's - we're not putting you out. We're just doing our own thing.

So it's - it was a strange process. I started out putting an all-female crew together because, A, I wanted to prove that we could do it but also so that I could be the navigator, which was quite a selfish reason. And then as we went on with it and it - people thought it was so impossible. And I thought, well, I've just raced around the world. It's not that difficult.

DAVIES: Right. And, well, you had to figure out - well, you had to buy a boat. And I gather you had a house that you mortgaged - right? - and put up - and borrowed money. And then you and the women that you recruited worked on restoring this boat yourselves. And it needed a lot of work, right?

EDWARDS: Yes, it did. We got to the point where we'd been trying for so long to raise money, the sponsorship to design and build our own boat, which, of course, all the other crews were doing. And I just - I realized one day that that's not going to happen. There are times where you do have to admit failure and go in a different direction. This is one of those times.

And so we found an old secondhand racing yacht with a pedigree. And that was - she was called Prestige at the time, but before that, she'd been Disque D'Or 3 and had been designed and built for Pierre Fehlmann in the '81-'82 Whitbread Round the World Race where she hadn't actually done that well.

When we bought her in the summer of '88, I mean, she was in a terrible state. And we put her on a ship, and we brought her back to the U.K. And then I gave the girls sledgehammers, and I said, right, take her apart, and we did. I mean, we stripped the inside of the boat. We stripped the deck. We took the mast out. We took everything apart.

DAVIES: Yeah. Was it unusual for crew members to do the repairs on their own boat? Is that what the guys did?

EDWARDS: It was absolutely unique - completely unique. All these other guys had a shore team. They had - well, they had brand-new boats, so they didn't really need to do any work on them. And, you know, so they'd sit in the cafe and watch us as we were putting this boat together. Although, as I said, I mean, there was a very nice part of that sort of being part of this big Whitbread family is that if you did go and ask for help, you would 99.9% of the time you would get it. You know, you might get a bit of a snide, well, you know, if you need help kind of thing, but then, you know, we were - beggars can't be choosers.

But the great thing about doing what we did the way we did it was we learned everything we needed to know about the boat. We put every single item into that boat, onto that boat. We painted her. We put the rig in. We did the rigging. We did the electronics, the plumbing, the NAV station, the rigging. So when we put Maiden in the water, I would say that we, us as a crew, knew our boat better than any other team in the race.

DAVIES: Which would come in handy later on (laughter).

EDWARDS: Yeah.

DAVIES: You got the boat, and even if you fixed it up, you still needed a lot of money because this is a race that takes months, and you need shore crews to help. And so you needed a sponsor. And typically, corporations would sponsor crews. You couldn't get that and you got some help as the result of a kind of a chance association you'd made in the past. Tell us about this.

EDWARDS: Yeah (laughter). So - I know. There's bits of my life which are so surreal. I was a stewardess on a charter yacht in Newport, R.I., and we had a very secretive, very important, high-profile guest. And we didn't know who it was.

DAVIES: This is a couple years earlier, right? Yeah.

EDWARDS: This is in 1984. So in 1984, I was working as a stewardess on this charter yacht. We had a surprise guest. It was, you know, very - it was all a bit weird, actually. We thought it might be Ted Kennedy.

But anyway, so we went off to Martha's Vineyard. The whole boat was checked. You know, we had the Navy. We had sniffer dogs. We had divers. Then we weren't allowed to stay on the boat that night. We're like, who is this person? And it turned out to be King Hussein and Queen Noor, and they'd just been their - Prince Abdullah's graduation. And they came for day sailing.

And I was washing up after lunch, and I felt this sort of presence beside me, and I turned around and it was King Hussein. And he had a tea towel in his hand, and I said, I don't think you can do that. He said, I can do anything. I'm king.

DAVIES: (Laughter).

EDWARDS: I was like, OK. I mean, I didn't really know who he was, if I'm perfectly honest. I was 21 years old, hadn't read a newspaper since I'd left home. But there was something quite extraordinary about this man, and he was fascinated with what I did, and King Hussein was a people collector.

He - and it wasn't just me. I mean, he collected people from all over the world, all walks of life. He found people interesting, fascinating. He loved his fellow human being. And I think that's what made him such an extraordinary leader and why Jordan is such a place of stability in the Middle East today. And he encouraged me to do the '85-'86 race. And then when I was putting Maiden together, he was always there in the background, always on the end of a phone if I needed help or advice.

But when I got to the point where I thought I can't spend any more time looking for this money - you know, two years and we had bits and pieces of money and donations and stuff but no big sponsor - I called him up and I told him, and he went, oh, for goodness sake. He said, right. He said, Royal Jordanian Airlines is going to be your sponsor. And that was just brilliant. You know, we - just having not to struggle for money anymore was amazing. And then, of course, she ended up this beautiful gray color with the red and the gold stripe because that's the color of Royal Jordanian Airlines' planes.

DAVIES: I have to ask. He was always on the other end of a phone. How does one dial up a king? Do you get his cellphone number?

EDWARDS: Well, he left me his phone number before he left the boat, and then before I got home to the U.K., he'd called my mum. And when I - I did a transatlantic home, and I got to Lymington and, of course, we didn't have cellphones in those days, so I went to find a payphone. And I called my mother and she said, what have you been up to? I said, nothing. I have - we just got off the boat. I've sailed across the Atlantic. She said, some guy called King Hussein keeps calling, and...

EDWARDS: ...You know? I said, oh, God. Please don't tell me you said you were the Queen of Sheba and put the phone down. She said, no, because knowing you, I thought there was every likelihood that it would be, so, yeah. So we forged this...

DAVIES: Wow.

EDWARDS: ...Very strong and very close friendship. And if I ever, ever needed to speak to him, he would always get back to me or be on the end of a phone.

DAVIES: Tracy Edwards' remarkable experience as skipper of the first all-female crew to compete in an around-the-world sailing race is told in the new documentary "Maiden." It opens in theaters this Friday. We'll be back and talk some more after a quick break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN AUERBACH'S "HEARTBROKEN, IN DISREPAIR")

DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're speaking with Tracy Edwards. She assembled and led the first all-female sailing crew to compete in an around-the-world race in 1989. That's the subject of the new documentary "Maiden." It opens in theaters this Friday.

So you get the boat ready, and you start going out and sailing in runs. And there was actually a kind of a warm-up race to the round-the-world race. And there's some - there's a leadership struggle, in effect. I mean, you - your first mate, who was a very experienced sailor - you decide you have to let her go because there's a question of sort of who's really in charge of the boat. And it was kind of a tough thing. And it became a media story when you came back because it fed into the narrative of, oh, it's a catfight. These are squabbling women.

And I thought we'd just hear a - this is a scene from the film that's - where we hear a member of your crew, Jeni Mundy, talking about the kinds of questions that she and the crew and you got from the media. Let's listen.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MAIDEN")

JENI MUNDY: If you looked at the questions or the articles written about us at the time, they were always digging for stories on, well, who's boyfriend, girlfriend? Are you lesbians? Are you sleeping around? Or surely you're not getting on that well. Bunch of women on a boat that size - there must be a lot of squabbles.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What about the crew? A bunch of girls - how'd you all get on?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Remarkably well.

MUNDY: You never saw them ask the guys those questions. They would be asked about tactics, challenges, you know, sail - sensible sporting questions. We almost never got asked those questions. Why?

DAVIES: And that's Jeni Mundy. She was on the crew of the Maiden. That was the ship that was skippered by our guest Tracy Edwards. You had the first all-female crew to compete in an around-the-world sailing race. That story is told in the new documentary "Maiden." Were you surprised at the media reaction that you got?

EDWARDS: We weren't surprised that there was resistance to an all-female crew in the race. You know, sailing is one of the last bastions of patriarchy, if you like. And it is entrenched. It's - you know, we're a maritime nation. It's entrenched in our history, in our warfare, in our culture. And it is extremely male-dominated. And it was, I would say, the hardest sport at - well, the hardest sport of any time to want to prove that women could do it, so I wasn't surprised there was resistance.

The thing that really made me laugh was the two things that guys used to say to us with absolute certainty. One was you're going to die, not you might or, you know, we think it's a bit of a risk. But, no, you're going to die, which - OK, we took that with a pinch of salt. And the other one, many says, women don't get on. Well, what? You're not a woman, and you're wrong. And, you know, it was (laughter) so weird.

DAVIES: Yeah. One of - one sailing journalist, Bob Fisher, called you a tin full of tarts.

EDWARDS: (Laughter) Well, Bob and I are now very good friends, you'll be pleased to hear. Bob was one of the very few journalists who allowed us to change his mind. And for the documentary, I have to say, he did a wonderful job of being very honest about what he thought then. You know, and he could have ducked it, but he didn't. He really - he stepped up to the plate. But when we sailed into New Zealand in first place, Bob Fisher then wrote in Yachts & Yachting, not just a tin full of tarts - a tin full of smart, fast tarts.

EDWARDS: And we all thought this was great. You know, oh, yay. Bob's changed his mind. And then someone said to us, you do know that tart is still in that sentence, you know? We were like, oh, yeah. OK. Well, maybe a little bit further to go.

DAVIES: You know, one of the things that struck me as I looked at the film - there's a lot of clips of you doing media interviews. And I have to say you seem very composed and on-message. I mean, you don't - you know, you don't rail at people. You don't rage at the criticism that you have been given. Did you get advice on this? Did it just come naturally?

EDWARDS: That is such a good question. You know, the first thing I thought when I first watched this documentary with all the other women - and we all said to - almost - a woman, the same thing. I looked at myself on that screen, and I thought, well, that's not me. That's - no, no. I have no link with that person - this young person up on the screen because I remember myself as being a bit of an idiot and a bit of a twit, really.

And I have this sort of almost horrible reoccurring dream about me being - oh, just kind of lurching from one situation to the next and, you know, fighting the next obstacle. And then we watched that, and I thought, I actually sound quite sensible in some of the interviews. And, you know, I say a couple of quite profound things. And to me, I don't remember myself like that.

And the only thing I can think - and I didn't have any major training. The only thing I can think is - I mean, my mom and Admiral Charles Williams, who was the organizer of the Whitbread, who was a huge supporter of Maiden. He was so wonderful. Admiral Charles Williams - yes, of course women can sail around the world.

EDWARDS: He was just wonderful. He did take me aside a couple of times and say, you know, yeah, you can't do a press announcement and then run out of the room. You know, you do have to stay for questions and little tips like that. But I was told right from Day 1, don't lose your temper. Because I, at the time, did have just a little bit of a temper, I have to say. So I am amazed when I watch that footage because I think I probably know what's going on beneath the surface.

DAVIES: And there's one moment which, I'm told, you cringe when you see now where you're asked, are you a feminist? And you say, I hate that word.

DAVIES: What was - I could kind of get what you were saying, but you tell me.

EDWARDS: Yeah. Well, you know, in the '80s, feminist was an accusation. It wasn't a nice title. It was - it had all sorts of horrible connotations. And really, it had been made into a word that women should be ashamed of, I think, with deliberate reason. And, you know, I drank the Kool-Aid, basically. And I was very young. I was 23, 24, during that interview. And I didn't want people not to like me. You know? You care very much at that age that people like you. I mean, you may be annoying them and putting this whole female crew together.

But I do remember afterwards my mum said to me, I'm so surprised that you don't think you're a feminist. And she said, I'm not going to tell you what you should say, but I think you need to have a bit of a think about that one. And then when we again got to New Zealand, and we won that leg and we were getting the same stupid, crass, banal questions that we had on every other leg, I just thought, you know what? I think this is bigger than us and bigger than Maiden and bigger than anything we've been tackling. This is about equality. And I think I am a huge, fat feminist. I think I absolutely am.

And I stood up for the first time in my life, and I said something that might hurt me and might make me not likeable. And I took pride in it, and it was an extraordinary experience.

DAVIES: When you were working as a cook on the otherwise all-male crew of that Round The World Race back then, when you observed the men on the boat and how they interacted with one another, I'm wondering if that was different from your observations of all-women crews that you saw later on?

EDWARDS: It's very smelly. It's very messy. You know, there's a lot of swearing. And then there are days when guys don't talk to each other. What is that? So that was very weird - a lot of tension, testosterone, egos. I mean, it was an interesting experience, that nine months. You know, first time and last time I'd ever been, you know, with 17 men and sort of watching them in their environments, if you like. You know, their natural habitat (laughter).

So it was - I had nothing to compare it to at that time, but then doing an all-female crew, then I noticed, wow, there's a huge difference between a group of women and a group of men.

DAVIES: Right. And how would you describe the difference?

EDWARDS: Well, I prefer sailing around the world with an all-female crew. I prefer, you know, sailing with women, anyway - much cleaner, you know? We do tend to wash.

EDWARDS: You know, even if it was in cold saltwater. (Laughter). More use of deodorant, as well, I have noticed. But we were always chatting, always talking. I mean, I know women - I know people say women talk a lot. We really did. And we did talk the whole way around the world. I don't think there's one subject that we didn't cover in depth, inside, outside and backwards.

Women are kinder to each other, and in a much more obvious way. So, you know, we - well, we're naturally more nurturing and caring, I think. And if you saw someone scared, or worried, or anxious or a bit down, there'd always be someone, you know, that would put their arm around your shoulder and go, cup of tea? Yes, please. Thank you very much.

So just a completely, completely different atmosphere - and I do think that each flourish in their own atmosphere. You see, that's the thing. I have done mixed crews, which have worked really, really well. But I think at that time, it really was each to their own.

DAVIES: Right. The thing that I wondered was whether women are just simply more willing to cooperate. And a crew really has to work together on a long voyage like that.

EDWARDS: I think the one time when we didn't talk was the time when we were cooperating the most, which was on the start lines. And it was very interesting, actually. We didn't notice we did this at all because we trained a lot. We trained. We trained. We trained. And then when we were on the start line - on the start line, you've got a lot of screaming and shouting. There's a lot of very macho posturing, you know, between the boats. And it's all sort of playing chicken, and it's, (laughter), there's a lot of shouting.

DAVIES: 'Cause you're all close together there. Right.

EDWARDS: Because you're all close together. But what we didn't realize until we got to the next stop, one of the guys said, you girls not talking to each other on the start line then? You know, you're not talking to each other already? And we went, yeah. What do you mean? He said, well, no one was saying anything or shouting anything. I said, well, we don't like being shouted at so therefore we tend not to shout at each other (laughter). And then we realized, when we're sailing in those quite stressful conditions, we were completely silent because we were so in harmony with each other.

GROSS: We're listening to the interview Dave Davies recorded with Tracy Edwards. In 1989, she became the first woman to lead an all-female sailing crew on the Whitbread Round the World Race. That voyage is the subject of the new documentary "Maiden."

After a break, we'll talk about the dangers and the extremes the crew faced during the race. And Justin Chang will review the new movie "Yesterday," whose conceit is that a strange blip has erased The Beatles from history with the exception of one singer-songwriter who remembers the band and their songs. I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. Let's get back to the interview FRESH AIR's Dave Davies recorded with Tracy Edwards, who in 1989 was the first woman to lead an all-female sailing crew on the Whitbread round the World Race.

It was an arduous 33,000-mile competition divided into five legs. The boats would start in England and compete to arrive first in the designated ports, where the winning crew would win a trophy and the crews would rest a few days before starting the next leg. The best cumulative time for the whole race was named the winner. Edwards' story is told in the new documentary "Maiden," directed by Alex Holmes. It opens in theaters tomorrow.

DAVIES: This first leg of the journey from England to Uruguay, you finished third out of the four boats in your class. And the journalists who thought you wouldn't even get there were giving you a well done sort of treatment. You didn't feel that way, right?

EDWARDS: No. We were absolutely gutted when we came third. We were so disappointed. So we had this really weird situation going on on the dock. So we were coming in with a face as low as I don't know what and then everyone else on the dock was going, you're alive, you're alive. So we had this really strange party with a very happy group of people and a very grumpy group of (laughter). It was very weird.

DAVIES: The second leg of the journey is from Uruguay to Australia. It's the longest. And you're kind of sailing across the bottom of the world if you kind of turn the globe over and picture it. So the most direct route would be kind of as close to the South Pole as possible. That gets tricky. That imposed a tough decision on you. Tell us what, you know, the trade-offs were and the challenges.

EDWARDS: Well, you don't just stop in ports. You continue to work and the girls are fixing the boat and themselves. And I just either sat in my room in the hotel with all my charts and everything else or on the boat in the nav station. And you're planning your next leg, and you're looking at different things, like what does the weather look like that's coming up? What is the sea state currently in the Southern Ocean? Where are the icebergs? They were particularly far north that year. And you're looking at long-range forecasts and trying to piece all these things together. And so what you want to do is, yes, you want to go as far south as possible but - and the reason why others made the decision not to was because of the icebergs.

Now, I made quite a risky decision that we wouldn't hit an iceberg. And I took us the furthest south of any boats in the Whitbread fleet that year. But I was very clear on what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do it. What you don't want to do is go so far south that you go over the Antarctic shelf, which then changes the shape of the waves and can make them quite unmanageable. And you also don't want to get on the wrong side of the low pressures, which is to go south of them. You want to stay north of them because they travel clockwise. So it was a hugely fraught leg on the decision-making front, but I was probably the clearest I'd ever been about anything in the race, and I got it right.

DAVIES: OK. So this crew - this is not a balmy Caribbean sail. I mean, you're going to save time, but conditions are - well, I think one of you said there's nothing that can prepare you for sailing in the Southern Ocean. Can you just describe a little bit about what it was like, what the crew had to put up with?

EDWARDS: OK. So the conditions in the Southern Ocean is your body starts to deteriorate as soon as you cross the start line. Pain and cold are the quickest ways to lose weight. You can get frostbite in your fingers and toes. It's minus 20, minus 30 degrees below freezing. You are constantly damp because salt water doesn't dry. So the girls up on deck would be miserable, cold, wet, miserable, you know, freezing fingers and toes, tons of clothing on, so you can barely move.

The food's revolting, so you just shovel it down your throat as quickly as possible and try and get as much sleep as possible with this four on, four off watch system. And it's also a sensory deprivation. There's no sun. There's no blue sky. It's gray, and the boat's gray, and everything's gray. And it is a miserable leg.

DAVIES: And you have to look out for ice, and sometimes it's foggy, and sometimes it's at night. What - do you place someone on the bow? How does that work?

EDWARDS: Yep. So you have a bow watch. We realized when we had woken up - well, when I'd woken up and the girls were really staring at it, but I was - I went up on deck and we were sailing past an iceberg. And I said, oh, my God, I didn't see that on the radar, and they went, nope, we didn't either. So that's when we thought, yeah, we need to have someone up on the bow just because it just gives you that few seconds more of warning if you see an iceberg and you have to swerve.

DAVIES: Right. So you're not within sight of any of the other boats, obviously. And you finally get to the calmer waters as you approach Australia. Describe getting into Australia and realizing where you were.

EDWARDS: Well, coming out towards Australia, a number of things happen when you come out of the Southern Ocean. A, well, obviously, it gets warmer as you're heading up towards Australia. The sea state changes. The color of the sea goes from a black to this beautiful, deep, translucent blue. The sky - you can see the sky again. It actually has a definition between the - you know, between the sea and, you know, the clouds. You suddenly remember all these things that you haven't seen for five weeks.

And then obviously, as I said, it gets warmer. You start to dry everything out. And as you get closer to land, as Jeni says in the film, land smells. And, you know, for quite a way out, you can smell what's coming up, and that's quite amazing. And it is like being reborn. And as we came up to Australia, we did not know whether we had won. We suspected we were in first place, but we didn't know until we crossed the finishing line and Howard was on one of the boats shouting, you're first. And we just were - that was I think probably the happiest moment in my entire life.

DAVIES: The third leg is the shortest. It goes from Australia to New Zealand, and that's a different kind of sailing. It's sort of tactical. You're often within sight of the other boats. You win again. Describe arriving in New Zealand.

EDWARDS: Oh, it was just amazing. We knew we had to win this leg to prove that we could do a long, hard leg and a short, complicated leg. And I had three great tacticians on board, and we did match race pretty much the whole way there with L'Esprit (ph) and then with Rucanor. And when we got into New Zealand, we'd been delayed by the wind dropping, and it was nighttime, so we got - we actually ended up getting in at 1 o'clock in the morning. And it wasn't again until we crossed the start - the finishing line that someone said, you know, you've won, and we were so happy. It was only by an hour this time whereas the previous time, it'd been 36 hours.

So we were now 16 hours ahead of our nearest rival at the halfway point. And when we did turn the corner to motor into the port that we were going into, there was a wharf and we thought that it was covered with thousands of birds. And it was only when we got closer that we realized it was people. Thousands and thousands of people had come out in Auckland at 1 o'clock in the morning to see Maiden in. And it was - oh, it was just amazing.

DAVIES: So you were - you had become famous. I mean, I guess this was, in some respects, kind of a novelty story in some way. But suddenly, people are rooting for you, and you're winning.

EDWARDS: It was - yeah. I mean, I think we still stayed a novelty for some people, although for a lot of people, they started to wake up and go, wow. Actually, women can do this.

DAVIES: Tracy Edwards' remarkable experience as skipper of the first all-female crew to compete in an around-the-world sailing race is told in the new documentary "Maiden." It opens in theaters this Friday. We'll be back after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF LULLATONE'S "ALL THE OPTIMISM OF EARLY JANUARY")

The fourth leg of the race began not so well for you and the others on the Maiden. You had calm waters that prevented you from really getting a good start. And I thought we'd play a clip that describes the part where you were going around - I guess it's the Falkland Islands and some of the seas that you met. In this clip, we'll hear from members of the crew - Claire Warren, Dawn Riley, Jeni Mundy - and the clip begins with our guest, Tracy Edwards. Let's listen.

EDWARDS: We went 'round Cape Horn. And then there was, you know, the possibility of some options opening up for us to be able to pick up some ground, so I decided to go for it. Turning up and going up past the Falklands, it got a bit busy.

DAWN RILEY: There's only been a few times in my life that it had been that rough.

CLAIRE WARREN: Often, on a boat, you know, you'll find the shortest distance is straight into the wind, for example. Well, boats don't sail into the wind, so how far off do you go?

MUNDY: It's like hitting a brick wall in a car without your seatbelt on every 10 seconds. It's just relentless.

EDWARDS: There's a lot of slamming. Whoomp (ph), bam. Whoomp, bam - takes a lot out of the boat.

DAVIES: And that's from the new documentary "Maiden," which features the voyage led by Tracy Edwards, our guest. It was the first all-female sailing crew to compete in an around-the-world race in 1989. It is powerful watching those scenes of, essentially, sort of surfing down one side of a wave and then slamming into another. How dicey did this get? How did the boat take it?

EDWARDS: It was an all-or-nothing decision. It was - you know, it could have been the wrong one, but we just had to do something, and so we all decided to go for it. What it did do was it opened up four hairline fractures in the mast, which we couldn't see at that time and didn't know they were there. But I - so I was in the nav station one evening, and I suddenly found water around my feet. And as we were going past the Falkland Islands, we had to - we started taking on a lot of water, and I mean a lot of water. It was pouring in.

We spent two days trying to find out where this water was coming in, and we hove to, which means you come off a way of the wind and you calm things down a bit, you take a couple of sails down. And the RAF Hercules was scrambled from the Falkland Islands just to check where we were in case we needed to be rescued.

DAVIES: That's an airplane dispatched from - by the British and the Falklands, right?

EDWARDS: That's exactly - so, yeah, after about two days, we managed to get rid of most of the water. And we realized that it was worse leaning over one side than it was leaning over the other side. And we managed to get on our way, but that lost us so much time. There was no way we could catch up on our lead at that point.

DAVIES: Yeah. I mean, this problem appeared with water at your feet in the navigation station, right? Did the fact that you and your crew had effectively kind of built the boat over again inside out - did that matter in diagnosing the problem and resolving it?

EDWARDS: Oh, without a doubt. If we hadn't rebuilt that boat, we wouldn't have known where to start. And as Jeni so eloquently puts in the film - it's one of my favorite lines when she says, you know, you can't, then, just give up and call the repair people. There are no repair people. I just love that so much. And, of course, you know, I mean, Jeni knew every inch of the boat. She was the electrician, and she'd run every cable. And we'd all done our separate areas, so we felt - OK, it was worrying, but we felt very confident that we were sorted out and we would get to the next stop over.

DAVIES: The last two legs, you didn't do as well as you had in the previous two and ended up finishing second in your class out of four - right? - when you sailed to England. Is that right?

EDWARDS: Yes.

DAVIES: Pretty good showing, you know, considering what people were expecting. As you arrived, you weren't feeling that, right?

EDWARDS: No. I mean, we came second in our class overall, which is the best result for a British boat since 1977 and actually hasn't been beaten yet. But that didn't mean much to us at the time. We were going through - when you finish a race like that, you go through a mixture of emotions. Obviously, if you're winning, it's all happiness and wonderful and fantastic. We hadn't won. We've come second, and it took me a long time to come to terms with that because second is nowhere in racing. But as Claire says in the film - you know, and she's very right - there was a bigger picture, and the bigger picture was what we had achieved.

The other thing, I think, that happens to you as you finish a race of that length is you suddenly realize that this family of people that you have been with for three years is suddenly going to disappear. And that is - it's quite shocking and can be depressing.

DAVIES: Right. That's three years total, I guess - what? - nine months or so on the ocean, pretty much.

DAVIES: Right. When you arrived in England, when you're sailing in, you knew that you weren't going to be there first. You did get a reception of sorts. You want to describe this?

EDWARDS: Well, it was quite - just extraordinary. We finished on Bank Holiday Monday, which - a good day to finish. And as we were coming up towards the needles, which we hadn't seen for nine months, it was sunrise. There wasn't really that much wind, and we were so close to - you know, this is it - the final stretch.

And as we were going up Southampton Water, hundreds of boats came out to meet us. And they would come towards us, turn around, then start sailing with us. So the final two hours of the boat was two hours I will never forget as long as I live - surrounded by thousands of people on hundreds of boats, throwing flowers and cheering. And it was absolutely amazing.

And crossing the finishing line, we knew, OK, we hadn't won, but we had sailed into the history books. And we are first, and you can't beat being first to do something. So - and then coming into Ocean Village, where 50,000 people were waiting for us, was just phenomenal - most amazing, extraordinary experience.

DAVIES: You know, we wouldn't have this documentary if there weren't a lot of film taken - or video, I guess - taken on the boat itself. This is real footage done on the voyage in 1989. How did that happen?

EDWARDS: Well, the Whitbread's organizers wanted some of the boats to take cameras, and most of the guys' boats were far too important and busy to take cameras and film. So you know, we stuck our hands up and said, we'll film. And so they gave us a camera.

And then we said, oh, who's - who is going to film? And Jo, who was the cook and my school friend - she said, well, I'd love to film. I'm doing - I'm the cooking. I'm - you know, I don't do a watch. So we packed her off to the BBC with a camera for four days. Four days - I mean, just extraordinary. And then she came back to the boat.

And, you know, we practiced before we went, which, again, is something the guys' boats didn't really do, even if they had cameras. We worked out that we needed a camera fixed on the radar mast for emergency situations when Jo couldn't film because we needed her on the deck as a crew member. And Jo has an amazing emotional intelligence. And her connection with her subjects, which is us, is what makes this whole film so completely unique. And Alex says, without her footage, he wouldn't have been able to make the documentary he made.

DAVIES: When the Maiden arrived back in England, you were named yachtsman of the year - still yachtsman, not...

DAVIES: Yeah. You were named yachtsman of the year - quite an honor. And you were a national celebrity - I mean, at age - what? - 27. What were your plans from that? I mean, you accomplished this remarkable thing.

EDWARDS: Well, I didn't have any plans, and that's unfortunately - did not go well. So the girls will disappear quite quickly. They'd been made job offers. And I said, rather gallantly and stupidly, I will - I'll stay here, and I'll write the book. And I'll do the interviews, and I'll, you know, sort of keep the story going.

And I fell off a cliff, really. And within, I would have to say - how long? - within nine months of the race finishing, I'd had a nervous breakdown. And if you'd have asked me this question even two years ago, I would not have told you that. But we're talking a lot about mental health in the U.K. and about well-being and caring for ourselves.

And I didn't ask for help, and I was struggling badly without my teammates around me. And so I disappeared off down to Wales, and I stayed there for two years and really became a recluse to - really, to the point where the whole saying, well, wonder where the hell I'd gone - before reappearing in 1994 with a new sailing project.

DAVIES: Right. I'm curious how you look back on that crisis. I mean, it - as I hear the story - I mean, you'd gone a long time without a real family, and then you found it with this crew. And then, suddenly, they were gone.

EDWARDS: It was very hard saying goodbye to everyone. And I still get emotional when I talk about it today, really. It was a time when I - I mean, I - my lesson that I learned from that was really to ask help when - ask for help when you need it. And you know, there's nothing big about pretending to be brave. That's just stupid.

So the lesson I learned on the race was that friendship and teamwork are the two most important things. And the thing I learned after the race was, if you have that teamwork and that friendship, ask for help (laughter).

DAVIES: Well, it's been great talking to you. Tracy Edwards, thanks so much.

EDWARDS: Thank you.

GROSS: Tracy Edwards spoke with FRESH AIR's Dave Davies. Edwards and her all-women crew that competed in the 1989 Whitbread Round The World Race are the subject of the new documentary "Maiden," which opens in theaters tomorrow.

After we take a short break, Justin Chang will review the new movie "Yesterday" that imagines a world in which the Beatles were erased from cultural memory, with the exception of one aspiring singer-songwriter who starts performing Beatles songs. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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History Resurfaced: Meet Maiden

• By Kelley Sanford
• Updated: May 23, 2017

The 58-foot sailing yacht Maiden has returned to the UK after a 27-year hiatus. Her former skipper, Tracy Edwards MBE (Member of the British Empire), met the yacht when she arrived, full of emotion. Edwards and Maiden have quite a history together.

In 1989, Edwards and 11 other women accomplished a first in the Whitbread Round the World Race (WRTWR), now known as the Volvo Ocean Race. As the women sought sponsors in the face of skepticism, Edwards hunted and hunted for the vessel that could make her dream come true. She eventually found it: a disheveled sailing yacht named Prestige. The yacht had competed in the 1985-86 WRTWR under the name Stabilo Boss. Edwards mortgaged her home to purchase the vessel and transported her to the UK where she was refit and renamed Maiden.

Maiden’s hull was painted grey, with gold and red lines, like the colors on a Royal Jordanian Airlines plane, Jordan’s flagship airline and Maiden’s sponsor. This sponsorship was ultimately from Edwards’ close friend, Jordan’s King Hussain I. Edwards would say it was only with his funding and friendship that the WRTWR’s first all-female crew were able to compete.

On September 2, 1989, Edwards and her crew set sail from Southampton, on the first leg of the Whitbread Round the World Race, destination Uruguay. The women completed the race’s 5 legs, won 2 of those legs in their class and successfully sailed back into Southampton in May of 1990, coming in 2nd place overall in their class. They’d accomplished their goal and shocked the sailing world.

After the WRTWR, Maiden was sold. Now, 27 years later, the yacht was discovered abandoned in Mahé, Seychelles. She was repurchased in 2016 through fundraising and, in April of 2017, has returned to Southampton. Maiden was joyously met by Edwards and other 1989 crewmembers, who had been awaiting her return.

She will undergo restoration at the Universal Marina, Sarisbury Green, Southampton in preparation for a big future: The Maiden Factor is a charity initiative to promote education for girls around the world. And Jordan is once again partnering with Maiden; in honor of her father, King Hussain I, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussain is supporting The Maiden Factor project. Maiden will set sail in August 2018 on her world tour to promote girls’ education. September and October are slated to visit Jordan and Dubai, with the following months’ locations are yet to be announced. Edwards and Maiden now have a chance to continue their round-the-world journey they started almost 28 years ago.

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Tracy Edwards’ Maiden to compete in the new retro Whitbread Round the World Race

• Katy Stickland
• October 17, 2019

Tracy Edwards has announced that her 58ft Bruce Farr-designed Maiden will race in the Ocean Globe Race, the retro Whitbread Round the World Race

Tracy Edwards made history in 1989 as the skipper of the first all female crew to sail around the world in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. Maiden won two legs and came second overall in her class. The best result for a British boat in the race since 1977.

Now Maiden could be racing the route again in the Ocean Globe Race (OGR), a retro Whitbread Round the World Race designed to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first event in 1973.

Organised by Don McIntyre, who was behind the 2018 Golden Globe Race , the 30,000 mile event is scheduled to start in Europe on 10 September 2023 and will have four legs taking in the Southern Ocean and the three great capes.

Stopovers will include South Africa, Australia or New Zealand and South America, before finishing back in Europe in April 2024.

Maiden won two legs in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race

Skippers from France, Finland and the UK have already committed to take part in the event including Edwards.

She recently told organisers: ‘With so many yachts from previous Whitbread races being rescued and restored, as has Maiden of course, it seems only fitting that we should race them around the world again. COUNT US IN!’

Maiden is currently sailing around the world as part of work for the not-for-profit The Maiden Factor , promoting girls’ education and raising money to directly support a group of charities  already working in the field.

Tracy Edwards is currently focussed on The Maiden Factor, promoting girls’ education around the world, but will she be tempted to skipper in the race?. Credit: Tim Anderson

Finland’s Tapio Lehtinen , a finisher in the 2018 Golden Globe Race, has entered a Swan 55 in the Adventure Class for production yachts between 47 – 55.25ft.

He has just taken ownership of the Olin Stephens designed yawl Galiana , one of two Swan 55s now entered in the 2023 Ocean Globe Race , and will set out from Southampton UK bound for Finland at the weekend.

First launched in 1970, Galiana is the second of 16 yachts to be built by Nautor to this design, which Lehtinen describes  as ‘the classiest and most beautiful of the early Swans.’

Tapio Lehtinen was the last to finish the GGR. Credit: Christophe Favreau/PPL/GGR

British yachtsman Alan Macmillan shares that view. He has entered his cutter rigged Swan 55 Ariana and is about to embark on a round the world cruise in preparation for the 2023 OGR.

Lehtinen, who has also re-entered the 2022 Golden Globe Race, sailed in the 1981 Whitbread as watch leader aboard Skopbank of Finland , and is using his OGR programmer to ‘blood’ the next generation of Finnish ocean sailors now graduating through the youth racing classes by introducing them to the Southern Ocean and the global racing scene.

This he hopes will secure a continuation of the Finnish round the world sailing legacy, which dates back to the days of the Gustaf Erikson windjammers and the theme of the Ocean Globe clipper route.

Demand for places in the Sayula Class for prescribed yachts between 57.4 and 65.5ft is equally high with five owners earmarking Swan 65s – sisterships to Sayula II , the original 1973/4 Race winner.

One is French entrant Dominique Dubois, owner of the Multiplast Boatyard in Vannes, who previously owned a Swan 65, but sold it a few years ago to buy an ultralight boat to compete in last year’s Route du Rhum solo transatlantic race.

Continues below…

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He built all the Volvo 65’s, the giant record setting trimarans like Francis Joyon’s Idec Sport and Thomas Colville’s Sodebo , together with a series of race-winning IMOCA 60’s.

Commenting on the entry list, race chairman Don McIntyre said: ‘Many want to remain confidential at this stage but I can say we now have 12 confirmed entries representing Belgium, Denmark, France, Finland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, UK and USA with the strongest enquires coming from Finland and France. There is also strong interest from the current owners of Sir Peter Blake’s 1981/2 Whitbread yacht Ceramco NZ and the French Whitbread winning yacht L’Esprit d’Equipe.’

The UK’s Alan Macmillan promises strong competition from his cutter rigged Swan 55, Ariana

Sir Chay Blyth , who competed in two of the early Whitbread races onboard Great Britain II , and claimed nine of the 12 trophies on offer in the ’73 Race, has also endorsed the OGR.

‘Delighted to hear that a 50th Anniversary edition of the Whitbread is being launched. The Ocean Globe will be a great adventure as well as a great race for participants. What a great challenge they can set themselves. My congratulations to the organiser; it is such a bold and exciting move! he said.

Recent Rule Changes

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the first fully crewed 1973 Whitbread Race and sailed in similar yachts with 1970’s equipment including sextants and cassette music tapes, the 2023 OGR gives ordinary sailors the opportunity to race around the Globe for the first time in nearly 30 years.

Entries are limited to approved production ocean racing yachts between 47 and 65.5ft designed prior to 1988. There are also 8 places available in a third Flyer Class for yachts that competed in the first three Whitbread races and other production ocean certified sail-training yachts. Tracy Edwards’ Maiden is eligible because the yacht first raced in the 1981/2 Whitbread as Disque D’or .

Together with the pre-1988 designed Nautor Swan range of yachts, the Nicholson 55, Grand Soleil 52, Oyster Lightwave 48 and Baltic 48 production yachts are also now type approved.

Some OGR entrants were challenged with the idea of removing extensive electronics, carbon spars or painting high visibility patches on beautiful teak decks as required under the pre-Notice of Race. Following extensive discussions, entrants no longer need to remove existing electronics, just disable them temporarily by removing control heads. High visibility cockpit dodgers will also substitute for the high vis. deck paint, and carbon spars fitted before July 1st 2019 are also approved.

Tapio Lehtinen has entered the yawl rigged Swan 55, Galiana in the race

The larger yachts and ex-Whitbread entries use Dyneema/Spectra runners and check stays for safety reasons, as well as halyards. All now approved. Spinnaker snuffers were shown to be available in 1973 and are now approved for safety reasons with amateur crew, even though they were not used in the original Whitbread Race.

Following six months of discussion with builders, surveyors and owners, it has also been shown that each keel is unique with regard to engineering integrity. While the final responsibility rests with the skipper, it is now agreed that the independent qualified surveyor responsible for inspecting an entry prior to the start of the OGR, will consider the yacht’s history and condition before determining if the keel needs to be removed for service.

The use of satellite communications equipment is severely restricted except for safety, and no live video streaming is allowed, but the scheduled once-a-week satellite phone call to race control, now includes delivery of one satellite photo from the yacht.

For the smallest Adventure Class for yachts down to 47ft, the minimum mixed gender crew required has been reduced to six.

All OGR outer garments must predominantly be of a colour that easily distinguishes with the wearer in the ocean.

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Tracy Edwards and her 1990 Whitbread Round the World Race crew mark restoration of the Maiden

• Stef Bottinelli

Tracy Edwards and her 1990 crew reunited in London's St Katharine Docks to mark the restoration of their yacht Maiden and promote education for girls

28 June 2018

Tracy Edwards and her 1990 all female Whitbread Round the World Race crew, marked the full restoration of their yacht Maiden in London yesterday.

The yacht will set off for a three year project to promote girls’ education around the world and raise money to fund projects to empower young women.

Eight crew will be aboard Maiden when she sets off from Southampton to Jordan at the end of the year to promote The Maiden Factor Foundation, I am a Girl and The Girls’ Network. The project is supported by Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan, who also helped restore the famous yacht.

The record breaking yacht, Maiden, is lowered into UK waters for after being found abandoned in the Seychelles

Before she starts her world tour, Maiden will be first unveiled at Cowes Week 2018 and then will  joining in the final leg of the Volvo Ocean Race  .

Iconic yacht Maiden won two legs of the Whitbread Round the World Race in 1990 and came second overall – the best result for a British boat since 1977 and a record that has never been beaten.

The yacht was rotting away when Tracy Edwards decided to have her restored.

27 April 2017

Maiden – the yacht that made history with the first all-female crew to sail the Whitbread Round the World Race – has arrived home.

The iconic yacht, which was skippered during the 1989-90 race by Tracy Edwards, was transported from the Seychelles, where she had been discovered rotting away.

She has now been transferred to Hamble Yacht Services for a year-long refit. The boatyard did the original work on the yacht ahead of the Whitbread 27 years ago.

Once the work has been completed, Maiden will be unveiled at Cowes Week 2018 before joining in the final leg of the Volvo Ocean Race which will bring together yachts and crew from previous editions of the Whitbread Round the World Race.

Maiden will then be used as part of a global campaign to give more girls around the world access to a basic education.

Maiden’s restoration and global campaign, The Maiden Factor, is being made possible by HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan in memory of Her father, King Hussein I.

Maiden’s former crew gather to welcome her home. Credit: Rick Tomlinson

“My father, King Hussein I, would have been the first to offer his support and guidance to the new Maiden Project announced this week. I, as a young girl, fondly remember his ‘hands-on’ involvement with the original project which made sporting history, and surprisingly feel how the issues of female equality and values he championed all those years ago seem even more relevant today.”

“Having the intrepid Tracy Edwards MBE back at the helm is something I know my father would have been so happy to learn and he would have wanted me to be part of this project. As his daughter, I feel honored and humbled to be involved with the resurrection of the Maiden project as it embarks on its new chapter of maritime history,” continued the Princess.

“The knowledge that Maiden will once again travel the seas, means not only will the memory and legacy of my late father live on but we can all use this a platform to highlight the need of equal access to education for girls in all corners of the globe, referencing something that he always believed in: ‘anything is possible’.”

Tracy Edwards defied the critics and inspired a generation of women when Maiden came second overall in the 1989-90 race.

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Many believed it wasn’t possible for an all-female crew to take part in the Whitbread Round the World Race – one of the most gruelling tests of human endurance.

Maiden won two legs of the race and came second overall – the best result for a British boat since 1977 and a record that has never been beaten.

“It’s shocking to me that over 61 million girls around the world are still denied one of the most basic rights; access to education. The struggle to get Maiden to the start line represents the barriers faced by so many, whilst also proving to the world that girls can overcome them, and achieve great things,” commented Edwards.

“The crew of Maiden faced many obstacles and prejudices. Very few people believed an all-female crew could complete the race and not only did we prove everyone wrong, we won two legs and came second overall. Now we would like to do the same for women around the world, who are being denied an education and the opportunity to reach their full potential,” she continued.

“To have support from HRH Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein of Jordan in honour of Her father is incredibly special as I know that without HM King Hussein I, Maiden would not have happened,” added Edwards.

24 March 2017

Maiden, which carried the first all-female crew to ever sail around the world, across the finish line of the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Race, is heading back to the UK on Sunday (26 March).

The 58-foot yacht has been languishing in the Seychelles, where the iconic vessel has been sadly neglected.

Now in a new cradle, Maiden is waiting for the arrival of the ship that will take her home.

Tracy Edwards sees Maiden for the first time in 27 years. Credit: The Maiden Factor

Once restored to her former glory, the yacht will be used to inspire women to take up sailing and challenge the perception of what women are capable of.

Maiden will become an “ambassador” for the not-for profit organisation, The Maiden Factor, which will work with charities such as I am Girl, Just a Drop, Girl Up and The Girl’s Network.

In 1990, a 27-year-old Edwards made the history books when her 12 crew on board Maiden defied the critics by winning two legs and finishing second in its class in the Whitbread Round the World Race (now Volvo Ocean Race).

This is the best performances in the race by a British boat since 1977.

Maiden and her all-female crew. Credit: PPL

According to The Maiden Factor blog, which keeps fans updated on the iconic yacht, Edwards had to remortgaged her house to buy Maiden for £110,000.

Called Prestige then, the former round the world competitor yacht was languishing in Cape Town’s commercial docks.

Edwards then had to re-mortgage Maiden to pay for the refit, and almost faced ruin until a former charter client, King Hussein of Jordan, stepped in to help.

Following the race, Maiden had to be sold to pay off debts, and went through a series of owners before being abandoned to rot in the Seychelles.

Edwards has spent three years raising funds to bring Maiden Home, and flew out in January to the Indian Ocean island to see the yacht again.

As recorded on the Maiden Factor blog, Edwards cried when she saw the battered yacht for the first time in 27 years.

“My poor baby, she’s such a mess,” she said.

“I had no idea she was in such bad shape. It is such a sad and gruesome sight. We have to get her home and fast.”

Just some of the work which needs to be done on Maiden. Credit: The Maiden Factor

“I’d heard she was in a poor state but not this bad,” she adds. “I’ve been raising funds to bring her home for the last three years but it stopped me almost dead when I saw her,” continued Edwards.

“There was a physical pain in my heart at the sight. I guess it must have been building up. I didn’t think it would be this emotional. I cried, tears of delight at seeing her after so long but also distress at what she has become,” explained the Whitbread skipper.

“The boat was the 13th member of the crew and she looked after us, made sure we got home safely so the bond is immense. She is like an old friend and it is distressing to see this neglect. When I first heard she’d been abandoned I was surprised how heartbroken I was. It was like losing a member of the family,” stated Edwards.

“But we can rebuild her. She is like me, a fighter and a survivor,” she added.

25 November 2016

Work to restore the iconic Whitbread Round the World yacht, Maiden, will begin in the coming months, with the vessel expected to sail into London in September.

The announcement from the Jordan Tourism Board comes following a renewed partnership between The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and Maiden’s skipper, Tracy Edwards MBE.

In 1990, Edwards made the history books by leading the first all-female crew to the finish line of the Whitbread Round the World Race (now the Volvo Ocean Race) on board Maiden, which was sponsored by the Jordanian Royal family.

Her 12 crew on board Maiden defied the critics by winning two legs and finishing second in its class, the best performances in the race by a British boat since 1977.

The 58-foot yacht was recently discovered by Edwards falling into disrepair in the Indian Ocean.

Backed by the Jordan Tourism Board, and through a combination of crowdfunding and sponsorship, work to restore Maiden to its former glory is expected to begin shortly.

The yacht will then be used to carry on the legacy started in the 1980s by Edwards – to inspire women to take up sailing and challenge the perception of what women are capable of.

The yacht will sail the globe promoting the agenda of education for girls and raise funds for these associated charities as well as Maiden Education.

Tracy Edwards defied the critics when she entered an all-female crew in the 89-90 Whitbread Round the World Race

Commenting on the project, Edwards said: “Maiden is an inspiration and I want her to engage with people all over the world.”

“She is an icon of female empowerment, the ability and will to succeed against all odds and that’s something I want to harness and use to inspire young girls everywhere to achieve their full potential,” she stressed.

Filming has begun for a one off TV series which will follow the rescue and restoration of Maiden and also the selection and training of a new crew.

The original Maiden crew from 1989/90 will deliver the “grand dame of sailing” to London in September 2017 for her re-launch.

Celebrations will include sailing under Tower Bridge and handing Maiden over to her new crew.

Crew trials will test sailing skills on the water in the UK and in Jordan.

There is also filming already underway to accompany a documentary about Maiden’s completion of the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Race which will be aired on prime-time television and have a premiere in Leicester Square in time for Maiden’s reveal in London in September 2017.

Following the London film premiere, Maiden will attend the start of the 2017/18 Volvo Ocean Race in Alicante. The yacht will then sail to Jordan for the winter.

Edwards said she was delighted that the Kingdom of Jordan had, once again, shown their support for women and sailing.

“We must ensure that the basic human right of every girl is to have an education, a conviction shared by His Majesty King Hussein of Jordan, who was the first person help me on my initial quest to get an all-female crew to sail around the world,” she said.

“It would be an understatement to say that I was delighted that the Kingdom of Jordan under the reign of his son, His Majesty King Abdullah II of Jordan, has stepped in to help me on my new mission to inspire a whole new generation and make Maiden a vessel for peace and education across the world,” added Edwards, who is now a motivational speaker.

Published on February 20th, 2023 | by Editor

Maiden returns to where it all began

Published on February 20th, 2023 by Editor -->

Tracy Edwards MBE has entered the iconic 58-foot yacht Maiden which will compete with an all-female crew in the 2023-24 Ocean Global Race (OGR).

Edwards led the first all-female crew on Maiden in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, with the yacht returning to this retro-themed race as part of the Flyer Class with other historic Whitbread boats from the 1970s onwards.

The OGR celebrates the 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race, marking the 50th Anniversary of the original event. Starting in Europe on September 10, the 27,000 nm course is divided into three classes and four legs with stop-overs in Cape Town, South Africa; Auckland, New Zealand; and Punta del Este, Uruguay before returning to Europe in April 2024.

Maiden has been on world tour which began in September 2021, having covered nearly 30,000 nm visiting 20 destinations and engaging with schools, charities and organizations as part of a mission to educate, empower and elevate girls, increasing their life and career choices and also raising money to fund girls’ educational projects around the world.

The OGR will provide a great opportunity to amplify Maiden’s mission and the importance of educating all girls for better futures for all.

Currently in Cape Town, SA, Maiden will sail back to the UK for final preparations for the start, once again with a young female skipper and crew of up-and-coming sailors from around the world, who will no doubt inspire another generation of women and girls to follow their dreams.

“We are very excited to take part in the 2023 Ocean Global Race, over 30 years since Maiden and the first all-female crew defied the odds in the 89-90 Whitbread race,” said Edwards. “Since then, Maiden has become a Global Ambassador for empowerment of girls through education and we have a young skipper and crew who will have the experience of a lifetime, just as we did all those years ago.”

Details: www.themaidenfactor.org

Event information – Race rules – Entry list

The 2023-24 Ocean Globe Race (OGR) is a fully crewed, retro race, in the spirit of the 1973 Whitbread Round the World Race, marking the 50th Anniversary of the original event. Starting in Europe on September 10, the OGR is a 27,000-mile sprint around the Globe, divided into four legs that passes south of the three great Capes. The fleet is divided in three classes with stop-overs in Cape Town, South Africa; Auckland, New Zealand; and Punta del Este, Uruguay before returning to Europe in April 2024.

Tags: Maiden , Ocean Globe Race , Tracy Edwards

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