Tracy Edwards | |
|---|---|
 Edwards in 2017 | |
| Born | 5 September 1962 |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Roehampton |
| Children | 1 |
Tracy Edwards, MBE (born 5 September 1962) is a British sailor. In 1989 she 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 and was appointed MBE. [1] [2] She has written two books about her experiences.
Edwards spent her early years in Pangbourne, England, with dreams of becoming a ballet dancer like her mother, but began to get into trouble after the death of her father when she was 10 and her subsequent relocation with her mother and stepfather to Wales. [1] She was educated at The Highlands School, Reading and Gowerton Comprehensive School. [3] [4] She left home and backpacked across Europe at the age of 16 after her expulsion from school, then signed on as a stewardess of a yacht in Piraeus, [1] [5] which was her introduction to sailing.
During a stopover in the United States she met King Hussein I of Jordan, [6] who encouraged her to join the crew of a round-the-world yacht and who would later arrange a sponsorship from Royal Jordanian Airlines, funding that allowed her yacht Maiden to compete in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. Prior to this, Edwards served in several positions on other yachts, including deckhand and first mate, before entering her first Whitbread in the 1985–1986 competition. [1] She began with the Norsk Data GB and in the second leg became cook aboard the Atlantic Privateer. [1] [7]
Based on the small ratio of women in the race – five out of 200 – she determined to enter in 1989 with an entirely female crew. [1] She recruited a 12-woman crew and mortgaged her home to buy a second-hand, 10-year-old, 58-foot yacht and refurbish it, renaming it Maiden. It finished second in its class, winning two out of six individual legs of the race. [1] [8] As a result, she garnered worldwide attention and praise and was awarded the Yachtsman of the Year Trophy and an MBE honour. In 1990, Edwards detailed her story in the book, Maiden, co-authored with Tim Madge. [9]
Thereafter, Edwards started a family and began managing sailing programmes. In 2000 she undertook a new round-the-world sailing venture, Maiden 2 , an attempt to claim the Jules Verne Trophy with a 110-foot maxi catamaran. This attempt ended with the boat being dismasted off of the coast of Chile. [1] Edwards was then involved in the organization of a new round-the world race, Oryx Quest, in 2005 in Qatar. This was the first time a round-the-world race had started and finished in the Middle East, based in Doha. After the successful event, which saw four of the fastest multihulls compete, Edwards was forced into bankruptcy when the Qatari sponsor dissolved their company and refused payment. She had personally borrowed £8m from the bank to help fund the event. [5]
She left sailing and went to work for the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) as Project Manager for their International Youth Advisory Congress.[ citation needed ] Upon completion she attended Roehampton University and took a degree (2:1) in psychology. She continued with her motivational speaking and became a life coach. In 2013, she began teaching Internet Safety and Online Reputation to children and parents and works in schools and with youth groups.[ citation needed ]
She and the crew of Maiden in the yacht race are the subject of the 2018 documentary film, Maiden . [10]
She is single, and has a daughter (aged 14 in 2014). [11]
In 2014, Edwards discovered that Maiden was abandoned in poor condition in a marina in the Indian Ocean. [11] She launched a successful public bid for funding to save the boat, with the intent to re-enact its Whitbread run before putting it in charitable use and displaying it in British maritime museums. [12] Maiden returned to Southampton aboard a cargo ship in April 2017. Edwards and four of her Whitbread campaign crewmates were present to be reunited with their old boat. [13] With external funding the boat was restored in Hamble, Southampton. With inspiration from King Hussein (and subsequently supported by his daughter, Princess Haya), Edwards founded "The Maiden Factor" which will utilise Maiden to raise funds and awareness for girls' education. [14] It was planned to re-launch Maiden in the summer of 2018 and in September 2018 depart from Southampton Boat Show with a new crew of women, on a three-year world tour. [15] The yacht left Hamble in November, but had to call into Plymouth for repairs. When they can continue, their first scheduled stop will be Kerala, India. [16] They were underway again, headed for the Strait of Gibraltar, on 26 November. [17] [ needs update ]
Dennis Walter Conner is an American yachtsman. He is noted for winning a bronze medal at the 1976 Olympics, two Star World Championships, and three wins in the America's Cup.
The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean Race after Swedish automobile manufacturer Volvo took up the sponsorship, and in 2019 it was renamed The Ocean Race.
Bruce Kenneth Farr is a New Zealand designer of racing and cruising yachts. Farr‑designed boats have won, challenged for, or placed highly in the Whitbread Round the World Race, America's Cup, and Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, among others.
Hamble-le-Rice, commonly known as Hamble, is a village and civil parish in the Borough of Eastleigh in Hampshire, England. It is best known for being a flying training centre during the Second World War and is a popular yachting location. The village and the River Hamble also featured in the 1980s BBC television series Howards' Way. The village centre, known as The Square, Hamble, has a more traditional English village aesthetic which differentiates it from the small industrial areas close to the village.
Sir William Robert Patrick Knox-Johnston is a British sailor. In 1969, he became the first person to perform a single-handed non-stop circumnavigation of the globe. Along with Sir Peter Blake, he won in 1994 the second Jules Verne Trophy, for which they were also given the ISAF World Sailor of the Year Awards. In 2007, at the age of 67, he set a record as the oldest yachtsman to complete a round the world solo voyage in the Velux 5 Oceans Race.
Adrienne Cahalan was the only woman competing in the 2005–06 Volvo Ocean Race. She is a qualified lawyer and had a master's degree in Applied Meteorology.
Denise "Dee" Caffari MBE is a British sailor, and in 2006 became the first woman to sail single-handedly and non-stop around the world "the wrong way"; westward against the prevailing winds and currents. In February 2009, Caffari completed the Vendée Globe race and set a new record to become the first woman to sail solo, non-stop, around the world in both directions.
Dawn Riley is an American sailor, and a pioneer in the sport of sailboat racing. She is in the National Sailing Hall of Fame and the international America's Cup Hall of Fame. The youngest and only female to be a 'dual-famer' this. She sailed in four America's Cup races and two Whitbread Round the World races. She was the watch captain on Maiden, the first all-women's entry in the Whitbread race, and was the team captain of the first all-women's team in the America's Cup. She later established the America True Foundation to encourage youth participation in sailing. Since 2010 she has run Oakcliff Sailing dedicated to Building American Leaders Through Sailing
Clare Mary FrancisMBE is a British novelist who in her first career as a yachtswoman has twice sailed across the Atlantic on her own. She was the first woman to captain a successful boat on the Whitbread Around the World race.
Jennifer J. Isler, best known as J. J. Isler and also known by her maiden name of J. J. Fetter, is an American yachtswoman. She is a two-time Olympic medalist and a world sailing champion. She was a starting helmsman in the 1995 America's Cup races. A pioneer in the sport of women's sailing, in 2005 she was the first woman inducted into the Sailing World Hall of Fame and in 2015, she was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame.
The 1997–98 Whitbread Round the World Race was the seventh edition of the around-the-world sailing event Whitbread Round the World Race. The Whitbread Round the World Race ran for the first time with all W60 boats and to a "points vs time" scoring system to enhance the value of the shorter race legs.
The 1989–90 Whitbread Round the World Race was run from Southampton to Southampton in 1989–90. It was run with several classes of yacht.
Pen Duick is the name best known for a series of ocean racing yachts sailed by French yachtsman Eric Tabarly. Meaning coal tit in Breton it was the name Tabarly's father gave to the 1898 Fife gaff cutter he purchased, and that his son learned to sail. He thereafter used the name for a series of successful racing yachts through the '60s and '70s.
Luke & Co was a boatbuilding firm, established in 1829 in Limehouse near London. They moved to Oakbank at Itchen Ferry in 1868, and in 1895, settled at Hamble. At Hamble, they designed and built yachts of all sizes, as well as providing all kinds of services to the yachts visiting or having a berth at the river. The river Hamble was a popular place to "lay up" yachts for the winter.
Wendy Tuck is a yachtswoman and previous chief instructor and principal at the Clipper Race training base in Sydney, Australia. She was the first female skipper to win a round-the-world yacht race.
Nicola Henderson is a British professional yachtswoman. In 2018, she became the youngest ever skipper to lead a team in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race at the age of 25.
Maiden is a 58 foot (18 m) aluminium ocean racing yacht built in 1979, designed by Bruce Farr and raced by Pierre Fehlmann, Bertie Reed, Tracy Edwards and John Bankart. Edwards bought the yacht in 1987 to compete in the 1989–90 Whitbread Round the World Race with an all-female crew. The yacht achieved good results and broke records, leading to Edwards becoming the first female winner of the Yachtsman of the Year Trophy, changing the perception of women in ocean racing.
Maiden is a 2018 British documentary written and directed by Alex Holmes about Tracy Edwards and the crew of the ocean-racing yacht Maiden as they compete as the first all-woman crew in the 1989–1990 Whitbread Round the World Race. The film was produced by Victoria Gregory's New Black Films.
Joe English was an Irish yachtsman, professional sailor and sailmaker. He competed at multiple world championship-level sailing events, including America's Cup, the Whitbread Round The World Race and Admiral's Cup race series. In 1989, English skippered Ireland's first entry to take part in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race.
Nicole Breault is American sailor who is a four-time winner of the U.S. Women’s Open Championship. As of 2021, she sails out of St. Francis Yacht Club.
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
