Thirty-three years after British round-the-world yachtswoman Tracy Edwards and her all-female crew sailed into Southampton to a hero’s welcome, her yacht Maiden is about to embark on a final race.
Record-breaking Edwards and her team defied expectations in 1990 to come second in the grueling Whitbread Round the World race. They survived a tornado on the final leg and went the last five days without food.
After being rescued from the scrapyard and painstakingly restored, Maiden is ready for one last stab at yachting glory.
Photo: AFP
“She’s reaching the point now where she’s had her day,” Edwards said at London’s St Katharine Dock, where Maiden is moored.
The yacht, built in 1977, is to be retired next year after she has competed in this year’s Ocean Globe Race — the Whitbread’s successor — which will start from Southampton on the southern English coast on Sept. 10.
Once again Edwards, whose Whitbread crew was the first all-female team to take part, has put together a women-only lineup — this time drawn from all corners of the globe.
Photo: AFP
The crew, skippered by the UK’s Heather Thomas, includes yachtswomen from India and Antigua as well as an Afghan filmmaker.
Since Maiden’s restoration, Edwards has been sailing the boat around the world as part of her charity work to promote girl’s education and empowerment.
The subject is close to Edwards’ heart after her own experience of discrimination as a young yachtswoman in a male-dominated sport.
One skipper famously rejected her saying his crew would not be the “only racing team in the world with a girl.”
That made her more determined, she said.
When glory came, the yachting world was astounded. Many had not even expecting her team to finish the first leg.
Edwards went on to become the first woman to receive the Yachtsman of the Year trophy.
She hopes this year’s crew will inspire girls and young women who might think sailing is not for “people like them.”
The search for the team took her “far afield” sparked by a meeting with Whoopi Goldberg, patron of her girl’s education charity The Maiden Factor.
“When we met her in New York she looked at me and said: ‘Where are all the black girls in sailing?’ And she was right,” Edwards said.
Edwards’ Maiden Factor works with charities and girls educational programs to help those with no access to education.
Edwards is particularly preoccupied by the plight of women in Afghanistan since the return of the Taliban government two years ago.
“I feel angry... Women are being canceled. I just can’t find the words,” she said.
Since August 2021, girls have been barred from schools and universities and most UN and non-governmental organization jobs.
Afghan video journalist Najiba Noori, 28, who is to accompany the crew, said she was honored.
“My generation had some chances, some opportunities, it was not easy, but we started fighting and we achieved,” she said, adding that she was “really worried” for the next generation.
“Their future is dark, it’s a tragedy,” she said.
After the Ocean Globe race, Maiden is to resume her “world tour,” promoting girl’s education for a last few months before retirement.
Her final itinerary includes Jordan.
Jordan’s late King Hussein was Maiden’s first sponsor after a chance meeting in the US when he gave Edwards his palace phone number and urged her “to give him a shout.”
Since the king’s death in 1999, his daughter Princess Haya bint Hussein has continued to offer support and help.
Hussein was a “great mentor” and encouraged Edwards to ignore critics who thought competitive sailing was too tough for women, she said.
“He was way ahead of his time. Girls in Jordan went to school, university, wore trousers, had jobs and sat in the government,” she said. “He was visionary, an extraordinary man.”
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