Whitbread Round the World Race: An all-female voyage is reborn
by Suzanne McFadden 9 Aug 2018 12:29 BST
23 July 2018
Maiden - Whitbread Round the World Race 1989/90 © YachtsandYachting
The first time Maiden sailed into Auckland, on a balmy night in January 1990, a phenomenal crowd of 14,000 people lined the waterfront to wave her in. It didn't matter that it was 1am, or that Sir Peter Blake’s unbeatable Steinlager II had already won line honours three days before.
They'd come to celebrate the crew of 12 yachtswomen who were pioneers in that 1989-90 Whitbread round-the-world race, including one Kiwi - Auckland sailor and rigger Amanda Swan (known by her crewmates as Mandi).
Newsroom journalist Alexia Russell, who happened to be Swan’s rowing pairs partner, was at the finish-line to report on Maiden’s finish. The New Zealand Herald held the front page for the news.
The throng of fans weren’t there simply because the sailors, for the first time, were all women, but because they were true race contenders - the first boat in their division to finish the leg from Fremantle to Auckland.
“The scene was pretty unbelievable,” Russell remembers. “The fact that it was the early hours of the morning did little to dissuade Aucklanders from turning up. The girls on Maiden were bowled over – you could see it on their faces.”
Maiden’s extraordinary skipper Tracey Edwards – a young Englishwoman who’d been a cook on board Atlantic Privateer in the previous Whitbread Race, and hated it - had mortgaged her house to buy an old boat which had already sailed once around the world.
When she couldn’t find anyone to support her dream of sailing around the globe with an all-women’s crew, King Hussein of Jordan stepped in.
Edwards had met the King by chance, working as a stewardess on a charter yacht in Newport, Rhode Island. She was washing dishes in the galley, King Hussein picked up a tea-towel, and they struck up a lifelong friendship. The Maiden team bore the logo of Royal Jordanian Airlines.
The crew on Maiden did more than win two legs, and finish second overall in their division. They burst through a glass ceiling, inspiring women and girls the world over to sail.
Almost 30 years later, Edwards has rescued her beloved Maiden from rotting away in the Indian Ocean. With the financial support of the late King’s daughter, Princess Haya Bint Al Hussein, the fully restored boat will leave Southampton next month on a three-year voyage around the globe – including a stopover in Auckland.
It’s likely that at some point of the journey, there will be New Zealand yachtswomen on board.
The 58ft aluminium sloop, drawn up by celebrated Kiwi designer Bruce Farr, was salvaged from the Seychelles, where Edwards found her in a distressing state of ruin.
For the rest of this story newsroom.co.nz