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Whatever happened to Whitbread sailing yacht Maiden?

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Tracy Edwards MBE changed the course of sailing history with her all-female Whitbread race crew - a story of determination that was immortalised in the 2018 documentary film Maiden . Now she’s using her famous yacht to alter the destinies of girls across the world...

Checking her email one summer’s day in 2014, pioneering yachtswoman-turned-philanthropist Tracy Edwards saw a message from a sender she didn’t recognise. Out of curiosity she opened it, and in doing so altered the course not only of her own life, but potentially the lives of millions of girls the world over.

The email came from a marina in Mahé, an island in the Seychelles. Over a glass of rosé at the Royal Ocean Racing Club in London, Edwards shares the message with me: “It said, ‘Did you know your beautiful boat is sitting here rotting? If someone doesn’t come and do something about her, we’re going to take her out and sink her.’ It was heartbreaking.”

The boat was Maiden , a 17.7-metre aluminium ocean racing yacht designed by Bruce Farr in 1979. Edwards had bought it second hand to contest the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race (later the Volvo; now the Ocean Race). At 26, she skippered the first all-female crew to take on the challenge and, against the expectations of sceptics, won two of the race’s six legs, including the perilous Uruguay-to-Fremantle leg across the Southern Ocean. At the end of the race, after 167 days and 33,000 nautical miles Maiden finished second in class overall.

By the time that email came through in 2014, the boat wasn’t hers anymore; she’d sold it in 1990. And the marina was demanding €75,000 (£63,000). “It wasn’t what she was worth,” Edwards explains, “it was what they were owed. Her owner had skipped and just left her. She was in such a bad state, she wasn’t even worth scrap.”

Edwards didn’t have the money to spare. But – as someone for whom there is no such word as can’t – she was unfazed. She contacted Maiden’s original crew members, and between them they raised the money through crowdfunding. Two months later she was on a flight to Mahé, expecting to sail Maiden home. “I thought, ‘She can’t be that bad,’” she says. “But she was. We’d have died if we’d sailed her a mile.”

This time Edwards was in a quandary. But, as has happened more than once in her extraordinary life, the planets were aligning in her favour. She was booked to speak at a conference of the Association of Independent Travel Operators at a Dead Sea resort in Jordan – motivational speaking is one of many strings to her bow – an event that garnered much more press attention than one might have expected because of the story of the decaying boat. Word reached Princess Haya Bint al-Hussein, daughter of the late King Hussein of Jordan, Maiden’s original sponsor, who called her. “She said: ‘My brother sent me a press release saying you’ve rescued Maiden . What can I do to help?’”

The story of how Tracy Edwards, now 57, became a competitive sailor is the subject of two books and the recent feature film, Maiden , a documentary that grossed $3.5 million (£2.7m) in the US in the first three months of its release. But it’s a tale worth retelling nonetheless.

As a child, Edwards had dreamed of becoming a ballerina like her mother, who had danced with Sadler’s Wells Royal Ballet, attending the performing arts school ArtsEd.

But although she retains the bearing and physique of a dancer – slight and slender, yet forged, one suspects, from steel and springs – Edwards quit at 12, when her widowed mother remarried. The family moved to Wales, and a volatile relationship with her stepfather turned her into a rebel. She was suspended from school 26 times and eventually expelled. Encouraged to travel by her mother, she went to Greece, where, still a teenager, she was working in a bar in Piraeus when the skipper of a motor yacht asked her if she would consider filling in as stewardess on charters. She didn’t hesitate. “I left that night and was on the boat the next day.”

Until then she’d had, she says, “zero” experience with boats, bar a short trip with her father from Hayling Island, on the south coast of England, to the nearby Isle of Wight when she was eight. She was seasick, and “vowed never to set foot on [a boat] again”. But this was a job, and she had a living to earn. And in any case, the yacht in question – Kovalam (now Lady May of Glandore ) – was an alluring prospect: a 31.5-metre motor yacht designed in 1929 by Philip & Son that had been used in the 1982 film of Agatha Christie’s Evil Under the Sun .

“She was beautiful,” recalls Edwards, who despite occasional seasickness soon found she loved the life aquatic. Autumn approached. “We ended up in Palma, and someone asked if I was doing the season in the Caribbean. So, I did my first transatlantic, this time on a sailing boat, and learned how to sail. On my second transatlantic I learned how to navigate.”

Over time – she reckons she covered about 250,000 nautical miles working on charter boats – she made the transition from stewardess to deckhand to first mate, thanks to a succession of “extraordinary” skippers. “They were such mentors. Every single one saw something in me and took time to change my life.”

The luckiest of her breaks came in 1985 off the coast of Massachusetts in Martha’s Vineyard, on a 31.6-metre ketch called Excalibur that was hired for a day charter by King Hussein of Jordan and his wife, Queen Noor. Edwards served them lunch, and the king engaged her in conversation, continuing to chat to her as she washed up afterwards.

“We shared the same interests,” she says. “He was a pilot, and I’d learned to navigate, and we both loved navigation. I love radios; he was a ham radio operator. And we both loved taking machinery apart. He asked me what I was going to do next, and I said what I really wanted was to do the 1985-86 Whitbread Round the World Race and that I’d tried [to sign on] a boat, but they didn’t want a girl. And he said: ‘You don’t strike me as someone who takes no for an answer. If you want to do this, you have to fight for it. You have to go back and get on that boat.’ And I realised then that was what I had to do.”

This time she was taken on as a cook. The 24-metre yacht, which like Maiden had been designed by Farr , was called Atlantic Privateer . Its skipper warned her at her interview that, in his opinion, “Girls [were] for shagging when we get into port.” But Edwards knew she could take care of herself, even though she was the only woman on the 18-strong crew (there were only four female crew, out of 230, in the entire race). Atlantic Privateer didn’t finish. But the experience galvanised her determination to try again – as skipper of her own all-female crew.

She placed an ad in Yachts & Yachting that read: “Wanted: girl sailors,” recruiting 11 women, all of whom were more experienced than she was. King Hussein, who had kept in touch, told her: “Leadership is not about being the best, it’s about bringing out the best in others.”

Edwards recalls: “He said, ‘You have to believe in people, trust people. If you truly love human beings and understand them, that’s the way to lead. With faith, honour and courage, anything is possible.’ That was his motto. I wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it above my desk, and it went around the world with me stuck above the nav station.”

She needed a boat. A new one was beyond her, financially, but eventually she found Maiden , then called Prestige , and mortgaged her home to pay for it. Thanks to King Hussein, Royal Jordanian Airlines became the major sponsor. Three decades on and now newly restored, Maiden’s livery retains its grey and white as a gesture of gratitude to her mentor, who died in 1999. Which brings the story to King Hussein’s fourth daughter, Princess Haya’s, offer to help.

“You’ve rescued Dad’s boat,” she’d told Edwards when she heard about Maiden in Mahé, and asked how she could help. “So I said: ‘We need a lot of money to restore her.’ And she replied: ‘Well, I can take care of that. But what are you going to do with her?’.”

At that stage Edwards wasn’t certain. “I knew I wanted to do something meaningful with her. She’d changed my life, and I thought maybe she could change others’ too.” Princess Haya flew to London; the two met, and within two hours they came up with a plan. They would use Maiden to raise funds for a grant-making charity, the Maiden Factor Foundation, to support initiatives that help educate girls around the world.

Edwards, having become an ambassador for the UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children soon after her 1990 Whitbread achievement, has a history of supporting good causes. A patron of six projects, it made sense to start with those. It isn’t only culture and poverty that prevents girls from going to school, she explains, it can be something as simple as a lack of segregated toilets that deters them, hence the work of Fields of Life, a development organisation in East Africa, and now a beneficiary of the Maiden Factor Foundation. And Just a Drop builds wells in developing countries so that women and girls can spend time studying instead of spending hours fetching water for their villages.

Then there’s the literacy charity Room to Read, specifically working with girls in refugee camps in the Middle East, and Positive Negatives, which produces literary comics, animations and podcasts about contemporary social and humanitarian issues aimed at young girls. Last, but not least, the Girls’ Network mentors young women at risk of leaving school before their exams.

“We have a big problem in the West with girls dropping out at 15,” Edwards says, “and missing those really important years, which is something I’m very aware of.” She herself gave up on school at 15, but eventually earned a degree in psychology. “That really decreases their life choices. The Girls’ Network puts women who’ve achieved something in business, or in life, into schools to work with groups of girls, and it’s phenomenally successful in motivating them.”

Just as Maiden is proving to be. Towards the end of 2018, the yacht was ready to go to sea again, setting sail on what will be a three-year, round-the-world voyage, crewed entirely by women, aiming to raise both funds and awareness. She headed first for Malta, then Sri Lanka, Australia and New Zealand, where Steinlager 2 , her great rival and overall winner of the 1989-90 Whitbread Race greeted her.

From there she sailed across the Pacific to Hawaii and then to Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles – “All wealthy yachting centres where we know we can raise lots of money,” Edwards notes. The day we meet, the boat has just left San Diego and is heading, via the Panama Canal, for Antigua in the Caribbean. There had been a plan to go south along the Pacific Coast, but Hurricane Kika held the crew in port in Los Angeles for 10 days. "Thanks to climate change, hurricane season is so unpredictable now,” Edwards says.

The yacht has a practical role to play, too. “We have hundreds of schoolgirls come aboard,” Edwards says, “which is much scarier than the Southern Ocean, I can tell you. And we’ve got this amazing female crew who also give talks in schools. We can’t keep up with the number of schools that want us. Teachers love it.”

Because, she stresses, it’s not just about telling girls there’s nothing they can’t do. It’s equally about showing them. And Maiden is proof of where single-minded determination can get you. “She’s not an idea or a motto,” says Edwards, or a glib instruction to follow your dreams. “She’s an absolute, actual physical thing.”

And so she is: a gloriously restored and refitted manifestation of just what a young woman can achieve – and go on achieving – if she really puts her mind to it. themaidenfactor.org

First published in BOAT International's Life Under Sail in April 2020. Get this magazine sent straight to your door, or subscribe and never miss an issue.

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https://www.barrons.com/news/sailing-legend-tracy-edwards-yacht-maiden-set-for-swansong-9fcdabda

• FROM AFP NEWS

Sailing Legend Tracy Edwards' Yacht Maiden Set For Swansong

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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 gruelling Whitbread race. They survived a tornado on the final leg and went the last five days without food.

Now, after being rescued from the scrapyard and painstakingly restored, Maiden is ready for one last stab at yachting glory.

"She's reaching the point now where she's had her day," Edwards told AFP at London's St Katharine Dock, where Maiden is moored.

The yacht, built in 1977, will 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 September 10.

Once again Edwards, whose Whitbread crew was the first all-female team to take part, has put together a women-only line-up -- this time drawn from all corners of the globe.

The crew, skippered by the UK's Heather Thomas, includes yachtswomen from India and Antigua as well as an Afghan film-maker.

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 wouldn't be the "only racing team in the world with a girl".

That, she says, made her more determined.

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 the 2023 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 programmes 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 cancelled. I just can't find the words," she said.

Since August 2021, girls have been barred from schools and universities and most UN and NGO jobs.

Afghan video journalist Najiba Noori, 28, who will accompany the crew, said she was honoured.

"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 will resume her "world tour", promoting girl's education for a last few months before retirement.

Her final itinerary will include 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.

"He was visionary, an extraordinary man," she said.

Sailing Legend Tracy Edwards' Yacht Maiden Set For Swansong

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.

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Yachting legend edwards’ ‘maiden’ set for final race.

• AFP, LONDON

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.

The Madien yacht is moored in St Katharine Docks in London on Thursday.

“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.

From left, Junella King, Kate Ledgard, Vuyisile Jaca, Najiba Noori, Willow Bland and skipper Heather Thomas pose for a photograph on the yacht Maiden in St Katharine Docks in London on Thursday.

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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Yachting Monthly

• Digital edition

‘Powerful and inspirational’ Maiden documentary

• Katy Stickland
• April 29, 2019

The story of Tracy Edwards’ Maiden campaign in the 1989-90 Whitbread round the world Race still astonishes 30 years on, reports Katy Stickland

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

Maiden is a gripping  film charting Tracy Edwards’ battle to enter the first all-female crew in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, and their air-punching success in defying the disparaging expectations of the male-dominated yachting establishment.

The powerful and inspirational film is packed with original footage, much of it aboard the crew’s 58-foot maxi Maiden , as well as interviews with some of the original crew.

It reveals the determination of the then 26-year-old Edwards to prove herself, and the sacrifices she made in order to get Maiden to the start line in the Solent.

Having lost her father at the age of 10, Edwards was expelled from school and ran away from home, ending up in Greece where she worked on charter boats, finding the freedom she craved through sailing. She learnt about the Whitbread after browsing a friend’s bookshelf.

The next day she asked for a job as a cook on one of the boats. More than 30 years later, the response: ‘We’re not having a girl […] girls are for screwing when we get in port,’ is still shocking, as is the chauvinistic nature of the male-dominated sailing press in 1989, who started a book on how far Maiden would get – some didn’t put their chances beyond the Needles.

The fact Edwards secured a place as cook in the 1985-86 Whitbread, hating the cooking but loving the sailing ‘when allowed on deck’, is a testament to her resolve.

This was to be tested further when she announced her 1989-90 Whitbread campaign, struggling to find a sponsor until the last minute and re-mortgaging her own house to buy Maiden before her remarkable crew refitted her.

They finally crossed the start line, arriving in Uruguay third in their class, much to the disappointment of the crew, but the astonishment of the yachting press.

Edwards, who was navigator and skipper, took the decision in the second leg to take the southerly route to Australia.

They won, the first British boat to win a leg in 12 years, and yet the sailing press called it ‘a fluke’.

They went on to win the third leg to New Zealand, and finally, there was recognition. ‘The side show started moving into the main tent,’ noted yachting journalist Bob Fisher in the film, one of the Maiden crew’s early doubters.

Throughout the documentary you are struck by Edwards’ honesty and her admission that she was full of self-doubt.

She openly states she was ‘gripped by fear’, scared of losing after two successful legs.

She is also not afraid to admit her mistakes, such as the decision for Maiden ’s crew to wear swimsuits for their arrival to Fort Lauderdale, a move to distract the press from their third place position in leg 5 (it was the most syndicated sports photograph of that year).

Continues below…

The Mercy: ‘One of the best sailing films I’ve ever seen’

If you’re a fan of the original Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, The Mercy will not disappoint

Tracy Edwards’ ‘Maiden’ returning to UK

Round-the-world yachtswoman Tracy Edwards‘ famous yacht Maiden, which was found abandoned on an Indian Ocean island last year, is to…

Unbelievably, Edwards reflects that, on crossing the finish line in the Solent, she ‘felt like we had achieved nothing, but seen a glimpse of what we could do.’

The thousands of fans who turned out to welcome them home disagreed.

There was even acknowledgment from the sailing establishment, with Edwards, after emotionally acknowledging Maiden ’s ‘amazing crew’, accepting the Yachtsman of the Year award – the first woman to do so: a fitting end to this uplifting film.

Maiden was released in UK cinemas on 8 March 2019.

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Tracy Edwards

Yachtswoman, author and activist Tracy Edwards, MBE, gained international fame in 1990 as the skipper of the first all-female crew to compete in the world’s toughest yacht race, the 33,000-mile Whitbread Round the World Race (now known as The Ocean Race). Her yacht, Maiden, won two legs of the competition and came in second overall in her class. For this feat, Tracy was awarded an MBE and became the first woman to receive the Yachtsman of the Year trophy.

In 2014, when Maiden was discovered in the Seychelles in a state of disrepair, Tracy raised funds to bring Maiden back home to the UK. And after she was restored to her former glory, the iconic yacht embarked on a three-year world tour in 2018 as a fundraising campaign for The Maiden Factor Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Tracy in an effort to promote the education of millions of girls all over the world.

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Part of the Global Warrior Project

• Feb 17, 2023

Tracy Edwards MBE becomes Patron

We are hugely excited and honoured to announce that round the world yachtswoman Tracy Edwards is to become Patron of Ocean Warrior.

IN 1989 Tracy Edwards bloodied the nose of the sailing World which was then a male dominated, bigoted, chauvinistic domain. She captained the very first all-female crew in the Whitbread Round-the-World Yacht Race.

Up against huge pessimism, cynicism and downright aggressive opposition she showed the whole world that women were equals, if not betters, than their male counterparts.

Simply to sail 33,000 miles in the World's toughest oceans over a nine month period is endurance enough but to race and beat the men in the toughest leg, the Southern Ocean was incredible and aptly displays her tenacious and doggedly determined nature.

Having said that I have found her to be a kind considerate and absolutely delightful human being. Not easy to balance those components!

She very kindly sent us this message:

"The Oceans have been my life since I was a teenager. I love the awesome beauty, the serenity, the frenetic chaos and the overwhelming power. To think that we as humans have taken advantage of and abused our oceans to the point of serious damage is horrifying. Which is why I was honoured when Jim and Sam asked me to be Patron of their critically important project.

Over the next 11 years Ocean Warrior will train ordinary people from all walks of life and many nations to benchmark, measure, and monitor - ground-truth - exactly what is happening for our partner scientific organisations.

What’s more they will do this by the power of wind, teaching the participants to sail in the process.

This by anyone’s standards is an extraordinary endeavour and I’m so delighted to help them in any way I can."

I see this as a true milestone in the development of Ocean Warrior - to have such esteemed backing augurs so well for our future. Thank you so much Tracy from all the team here!

P.s. If any of you have missed seeing the film MAIDEN then I would thoroughly recommend watching it - a fabulous and inspirational story told brilliantly.

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Tracy hails Ellen

• February 9, 2005

Tracy Edwards hails Ellen MacArthur's solo achievement

Round-the-world yachtswoman, Tracy Edwards commends Ellen MacArthur for her record-breaking achievement

Like Ellen, Edwards has sailed non-stop circumnavigations, famously skippering an all-woman crew in the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World race aboard Maiden Great Britain. On the day that Ellen MacArthur came home with the historic non-stop solo circumnavigation record, Tracy praised:

“Ellen’s really accomplished something incredible. Her boat is smaller and lighter than the giant ones in the Oryx Quest, but when you’re on your own, mentally and physically drained, it will bring you right to the limits of human capability. Ellen had no-one there to lend support at times when she would have thought she was at the end of her ability and to come through that with the new record is something that she can be uniquely proud of. She’s done a tremendous job and my deepest admiration goes to her.”

Oryx Quest 2005 takes a different route around the world to that of MacArthur. It is the first sailing race to start and finish in the Middle East. The four boats are now pushing south, skirting the edge of a high pressure system in the Indian Ocean and, after four days at sea, are all still very closely matched. Doha 2006 has retaken the lead from the all-French crew on Geronimo in a continuing match-race, while David Scully’s Cheyenne has closed to within one nautical mile of the leading pair. The smallest of the boats, Daedalus, is a short way back in fourth.

Race positions at 11.00 (GMT) Wednesday 9th February 2004:

1. Doha 2006

2. Geronimo 3. Cheyenne 4. Daedalus

Round the World Yachtswoman

Tracy Edwards, MBE

Tracy Edwards has a lot to talk about! A life story that is akin to the proverbial “rollercoaster” ride is condensed into a speech of inspiration, life and business lessons, fun and drama.

Tracy gained international fame in 1990 as the skipper of the first all-female crew to sail around the world when they raced in the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Race. After years of struggle, Maiden was only made possible by the support of her friend HM King Hussein I of Jordan. Maiden won two legs and came second overall in her class, the best result for a British boat since 1977 and unbeaten to this day. Tracy was awarded an MBE and became the first woman in its 34 year history to be awarded the Yachtsman of the Year Trophy. She paved the way for other women to follow. Maiden was published in 1990 and was No.1 on the Times bestseller list for 19 weeks.

Following her success with Maiden, Tracy set to consolidate her position as one of the world’s top sailors by entering Trophy Jules Verne in 1998 again with an all-female crew.

This yachting trophy is for the fastest circumnavigation around the world with no stopping and no outside assistance. She was comfortably on course to smash the record for more than half of their route, but was thwarted when her mast snapped in two in treacherous seas off coast of Chile. During their attempt Tracy and her team broke 7 world records.

In 2014 Maiden was found rotting in the Seychelles and Tracy began raising funds in order to rescue Maiden and bring her home to the UK. The Maiden Factor was consequently set up to promote and fundraise for the education of 130 million girls worldwide who are currently denied this basic right. Thanks to the generous support of HRH Princess Haya bint Al Hussein, Maiden has been restored to her former glory. Now this iconic piece of British maritime history has embarked on a two-year world tour to raise funds for her charity, The Maiden Factor Foundation. The Maiden Factor funds projects run by charities that enable and facilitate girls’ education. – www.themaidenfactor.org

Tracy is a unique speaker having experienced not only the upsides of winning but also the devastation of taking a calculated risk that resulted in financial ruin and the depths of despair. She speaks eloquently and is disarmingly open about success and failure. The biggest lessons in life are learnt when things go wrong and Tracy’s story of battling against the odds to survive is poignant and truly revealing. There are many lessons to be learned from Tracy’s experiences of massive successes and devastating failure. In addition, Tracy has lost none of the sparkle and humour that audiences warm to and make her one of the most inspirational speakers of today.

Practical Boat Owner

• Digital edition

Emotional homecoming for the pioneering Maiden yacht

• Laura Hodgetts
• April 28, 2017

Maiden homecoming. Credit: Peters & May Group

Yachtswoman Tracy Edwards made an emotional speech when she gathered with former Whitbread Round the World Race crew members and supporters to welcome the Farr 58’ yacht Maiden home to Southampton.

Maiden sailed into the history books in 1990 when skipper Edwards and an all-female crew successfully completed the race – winning two legs and coming second overall – a British record that is still held.

The yacht then went through a procession of owners before being found abandoned in the Seychelles, and was subsequently bought following a Maiden Rescue campaign to start the next chapter of her history.

Edwards and former Maiden crewmates gathered on Monday this week, as their ’13th crewmember’ was discharged directly to water in grand fashion from a cargo ship at Southampton Port.

Tracy Edwards, second left, with the Maiden crew and supporters from The Magenta Project team

Edwards told the crowd of media and supporters, she had experienced ‘very difficult times over the past four years.’ In the speech, which was captured on a Facebook live video, a tearful Edwards said: ‘The Maiden girls are the reason I rescued Maiden. If it hadn’t been for these girls, it would just be a boat, it would be a lump of metal. It’s Maiden because of us. ‘When we decided to rescue Maiden four years ago, we knew it was going to be a bit of a hard slog. ‘We had absolutely no idea it was going to take four years of blood, sweat and tears with comments from potential sponsors like “Oh it’s a bit of an ego trip for you isn’t it love?” Which was my personal favourite, I have to say. ‘We’ve toughed it out, we have raised money through crowdfunding, there are people who have helped to buy the boat, people who have kept me sane, kept me going, so thank you very much.’

Edwards credited her daughter Mackenna for the suggestion of combining her fundraising work for girls’ education and charities with Maiden’s restoration.

She added: ‘We want to work with schools and charities that get girls into education. That’s how The Maiden Factor was born, everything we do with The Maiden Factor will be built around that premise. window._taboolaSlots=window._taboolaSlots||[];window._taboolaSlots.push({"mode":"thumbnails-a-mid","container":"taboola-mid-article","placement":"Mid Article","target_type":"mix"}); ‘I was expelled from school when I was 15 years old, I gave away an education that some girls fight for, or their fathers and mothers fight for. They live in cultures where they’re not allowed to go to school, 69million girls around the world don’t go to school.’

HM King Hussein bin Talal and his daughter HRH Princess Haya bint Al Hussein

Edwards celebrated the fact that the daughter of her original Whitbread race sponsor, King Hussein of Jordan, HRH Princess Haya bint Al Hussein was supporting the new Maiden Factor project.

She said: ‘Without King Hussein, Maiden wouldn’t have happened, it really is as simple as that.

Edwards said The Maiden Factor was King Hussein’s legacy and Princess Haya bint Al Hussein had ‘brought the project full circle.’

Edwards added: ‘The Princess’s vision is even bigger than mine. Her vision is that we’ll make a women’s global movement, we’ll bring charities and organisations together, and work together for the benefit and empowerment of women and the education of girls. ‘Thank you so much for getting us here, which is just amazing, thank you.’ Maiden in the water. Credit: Peters & May Group

In order to bring  Maiden home for an extensive refit at Hamble Yacht Services, Edwards needed to find a practical solution for the transportation.

As the Seychelles being a remote area, with limited shipping options for a yacht of her size, Peters & May Yacht Racing Logistics were able to induce the RollDock SKY Flo Flo Vessel that Peters & May Commercial had chartered for other cargo shipment on from Asia to Europe.

Craig Stanbury, global yacht racing logistics director at Peters & May, said: ‘Due to her location and size it was a challenge to find an efficient solution for the cradling and shipment of Maiden . ‘Peters & May having worked with the Maiden campaign previously during The Whitbread Round the World Race are proud to be a part of it working together with friends in the industry to get her home safely. We are all delighted to help make it happen for Tracy and the team.’

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'I get seasick and can only doggy paddle' The unlikely story of round-the-world yachtswoman Tracy Edwards 

• Captained the first all-woman crew in toughest yacht race in the world
• Attempt to organise an international boat race in Qatar left her bankrupt
• Spent most of the last decade rebuilding a life for her and her daughter
• Now a Project Manager for the NSPCC and helped with UN Convention of the Rights of the Child

By Elizabeth Sanderson

Published: 05:24 EDT, 28 November 2013 | Updated: 07:58 EDT, 28 November 2013

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Tracy Edwards has never been one to shy away from a challenge. In her twenties, she captained the first all-woman crew in the longest, toughest yacht race in the world, defying the many critics who said she’d never do it.  

Fame and acclaim followed... until it all went spectacularly awry.

An ambitious attempt to organise an international boat race in Qatar left the sportswoman bankrupt and £8 million in debt. At her lowest point, Tracy had only £19 to her name - a name that had once epitomised the best of British values.

Tracey, 51, has spent most of the last decade quietly rebuilding a life for her and her 13-year-old daughter Mackenna

Yet, as she proved in her sailing career, Tracy is not one to admit defeat.  

Eight years later, and in her first in-depth interview since being discharged from bankruptcy, Tracy is as upbeat and determined as ever. 

Now 51 years old, she has spent most of the last decade quietly rebuilding a life for her and her 13-year-old daughter Mackenna. 

In that time she got her first ‘proper job’ with CEOP, the UK’s national centre dedicated to stopping children being sexually abused, completed a degree in psychology from Roehampton University and she has now set up her own business, Safer World Training, which offers courses to parents and children about internet safety and awareness and gap year travel.

Tracy Edwards, being skipper of the all female crew on board the 92 ft catamaran, 'Royal & Sun Alliance'

In fact, the only thing she hasn’t done is set foot on deck even thought her new HQ, The Tracy Edwards Academy, is based in a restored former boathouse on the River Thames.

‘No, not once,’ she says throwing her head back with a laugh.  ‘I haven’t been on a boat in eight years. My daughter doesn’t like sailing.  She gets seasick - she takes after her Mum in that respect.’

So Tracy Edwards, a woman used to battling waves the size of houses, gets seasick?

‘Oh yes, always. You never get over it you just learn to manage it in that it takes rougher and rougher seas before you start to feel really ill.’

Incredibly, Tracy’s not much of a swimmer either.  A tiny, 5’2, she’s just about capable of a doggy paddle.

But then she has always been tenacious. Her father died when she was 10 years old and her mother re-married a man she hated and moved the family from Berkshire to Wales, where she was bullied so badly she once ended up in hospital.

Expelled at 15, Tracy ended up crewing on boats and within 10 years, through sheer force of will, made the leap from deckhand to skipper. King Hussein of Jordan was the main sponsor of her boat Maiden which she entered in the 1989 Whitbread Round the World race, coming overall second. Those who believed women weren't physically strong enough to skipper were forced to eat their words.

At 37 she became pregnant with Mackenna, or Mack as she is known. Tracy has never named the father, always knowing she would bring her daughter up on her own, which must have made it all the harder when she lost everything.

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The details are complicated but essentially Tracy agreed to set up the Oryx Quest, a competition, in Qatar, for the fastest boats in the world. The race went ahead but the Qataris reneged on the funding deal, leaving Tracy owing £8 million to the bank.

She was declared bankrupt on her 43rd birthday, her £1 million Berkshire farmhouse was repossessed and she had to move her mother, Patricia, who suffered from multiple sclerosis, into a home.

Tracy welcomes home her record breaking catamaran Maiden II to Southampton in June 2002

Tracy received an OBE in 1990

Tracy says: ‘Going under was extraordinarily difficult, the worst. Luckily, I didn’t have time to think about how embarrassing it was as I had a five-year-old daughter and a disabled mum to look after.

In a way, the money, it was so what.... the really, really difficult thing was my Mum because I’d promised her I’d always look after her. 

‘But - you may not believe this, people think I’m being trite, but you really do get to find out who your friends are. It’s funny because there was the nucleus - family and close friends who were always there.

'There was the outer circle who all went, then there was this interesting middle circle who sort of thought, “How long is this going to go on for, is the champagne going to come back or not?”  And the great thing is, you get rid of them as well. Now, there’s not a number on my phone that comes up who I don’t like. And how many people can say that?

Attempting to organise an international boat race in Qatar left Tracy bankrupt and £8 million in debt

‘I’m not saying that year wasn’t horrendous. It was. Would I have wanted it? No. But it put me on a different course. When I left sailing behind I didn’t want to be one of this people going back to it, like an itch. This meant I could draw a line under it and that was lucky. I had this fear of continuing to sail around the world in ever-decreasing circles.’

It really was a chance to start afresh. Tracy took a map of London and dropped pin it, renting a two-bedroom cottage, where it landed, in south West London. She had two short-lived marriages in her youth but is currently single.

‘Mac is the only person in my life I’ve probably been in love with,’ Tracy admits. ‘Having her taught me that I probably hadn’t had that before ... sorry to both my husbands.

‘It’s funny, I’m not the mother I thought, I’d be. I think I am quite strict but I’m not pushy.  Mack is equal first shot, under 18s, in the country. She could go to the Olympics if she wants to but she can take it or leave it.'

Tracy with baby Mackena, who she says is the first person she has ever been in love with ’

So how does Tracy, and her fierce competitive streak, cope with that?

‘I have to chew my own knuckles off obviously,’ she laughs, tossing her head back. ‘But she’s her own person.  And she’s one of the nicest people I’ve met in my life. We’re very different.  I’m very organised, can’t ever be late, she’s very different. So when I’m throwing my toys out of the pram, she’ll be very calm.’

Although Tracy hadn’t planned on becoming a mother, she had always worked with the NSPCC. It was through her role as an ambassador for the children’s charity that the next unexpected chapter in her life began.

Tracy says: ‘I was asked to do a tour of CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, in Pimlico.  I’d never even heard of them but I was just blown away by what they were doing. [CEOP is dedicated to eradicating the sexual abuse of children, working with national and international police forces, education experts and governments around the world.

The then head of the operation was also impressed and asked Tracy to come in for an interview.

She became a Project Manager, bringing together 140 teenagers from 20 countries and together they wrote the 2009 Resolution for the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. 

She says: I was terrified. It was my first ever interview and when I got the job it was my first ever proper job. 

'It’s sounds stupid but it was. Sailing around the world was fun. You could die but it was still fun.  This was different and I just loved it. I felt like a kid in a candy shop, working in a world without salt water.’

Inspired by the experience, Tracy went to Roehampton University to study psychology.  She was 47 years old.

‘I didn’t have an ‘O’ level or an ‘A’ level to my name. But any middle aged woman wanting to go, I say do it. There were 600 students and I was the oldest there by 30 years and I loved it.  There’s always so much negative stuff about teenagers but I learnt as much from them as the psychology degree.’

This in turn led her to set up Safer World Training with Sharon Girling, a retired police investigator she met at CEOP, Andy Miller, a former Diplomatic Officer and Theodora Franks a Security Analyst.

Tracey is a Project Manager for the NSPCC and helped write the 2009 Resolution for the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child

They offer a wide variety of online courses for children, teenagers and ‘golden oldies’ as well as self-defence classes for all ages, training classes for youngsters going on gap years and can provide ongoing risk assessments for the different countries during their travels.  One of the most interesting areas, however, is the work they do with parents and teenagers on the dangers of the internet. 

It couldn’t come at a more relevant time as the threats to children’s safety from the online world, grows by the day.

Tracy explains: ‘This is the first generation where the children know more than their parents and it won’t happen again. Tomorrow’s parents will be much more tech savvy. 

‘Children today know they know more about the internet than their parents and so they often won’t bother speaking to them about it.  When I went to CEOP people showed me how to be safe online, that’s how I learnt with my daughter.

'Simple things like I asked her to take me through the security settings on her phone and computer so we could go through it together. It meant I understood the technological side - and she knew I understood it - and we’d opened up a conversation.  On the other side, while parents might be nervous of the technology they still know more about people.

‘Although the courses are about internet safety, they’re more about people than technology. The technology is just a tool for people.’

So what are the biggest dangers?

‘Teenagers chatting online to people they think are other teenagers. They don’t have the life skills to realise they are being groomed. Paedophiles are not stupid people. Look at Jimmy Savile, he groomed a whole nation - groomed the police, the BBC. They spend a lifetime dedicated to what they do. 

Tracy set up Safer World Training which offers a wide variety of online courses for children, teenagers and 'golden oldies'

‘Perhaps even bigger than that now is sexting (the sending of sexually explicit photographs or messages by phone).  And we all know what teenagers are like nowadays - their phones are extensions of themselves.

‘We explain that once you send a picture with no clothes on, it is there forever. Obviously I think my daughter is the safest daughter, online, in the world.  But she didn’t know that when you send a picture on Snapchat (a phone app where users can send pictures which then disappear after 10 seconds), it doesn’t always disappear. People can take screengrabs of them and they do.’

In the courses, parents and children are given separate talks before the two groups join together at the end.

Tracy says: ‘Sharon does a lot of these courses. It’s fascinating. One of the first thing’s she says to the parents, “At some point your child will send a naked picture of themselves to someone or come very close to it.” 

‘Their reaction is always the same. They all lean back and cross their arms as if to say, “Not my child.” That’s what every person thinks - me included - but the reality is, it could be any one of our children. The peer pressure they come under is enormous.’

The courses also cover online bullying as well as some of the increasingly worrying internet scams. 

Tracy says: ‘We recently had a call from a father whose 13-year-old daughter had been using her computer and she’d accidentally clicked on a link that popped up on the screen.  It was a Trojan horse (this infects your computer with a virus and is often used by online fraudsters to hack into people’s bank accounts). Seconds later a banner exploded in front of her saying, “This is the FBI, you have broken the law."

'There was a warrant with her picture on it.  The Trojan had switched on the videocam on her computer and taken a picture of her. Obviously she freaked out and burst into tears.  In this instance, the next step was to ask for money but there have been cases where children have been leaving their computer on overnight. The camera has been switched on remotely and people are watching them in their room without them knowing.’

Although children are taught some of this in schools, she believes it’s the communication between parents and children that is key.

She says: ‘It’s about educating yourself and taking responsibility for the safety of your child. When I went to CEOP, I remember saying, 'Oh, yes Mack learns that in school and I was really wrapped on the knuckles. They said, “That’s not good enough. You need to learn about it too."

'And I remember thinking, when I was teaching her to cross the road, I didn’t just say, “Oh it’s OK, she learns that in school.”  I drilled the dangers it to her. Why is this any different? The dangers online are the same dangers but they are just in a different environment.  So parents need to know about that environment and children need to be able to speak to them about it.’

Tracy on her aboard her record-breaking yacht at Tower Bridge (l) and as she captained an all- female crew in a bid to circumnavigate the globe non-stop (r)

Having said that, Tracy doesn’t want to scare people, she simply wants them to confront the dangers that are. It’s something she’s done throughout her life, in one form or another, yet it’s clear that of all those challenges, this is the most rewarding yet.

‘Oh yes,’ Tracy says leaning forward in her chair, clasping her hands together with conviction. ‘I’m more passionate about this than anything I’ve ever done in my life, even Maiden - I do look back at that time and laugh. Who did I think I was gathering this crew and saying, “Oh yes we can do this.”

But she did do it and she will do this too. 

‘It’s been difficult but I’ve finally found the thing I want to do.  I’ve always rushed from project to project but here’s something that doesn’t end the moment you cross the finishing line.’

www.safterworldtraining.com 

Share or comment on this article: 'I get seasick and can only doggy paddle' The unlikely story of Round-the-world yachtswoman Tracy Edwards

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