Butler's Cinema Scene

Tracy Edwards (left), skipper of The Maiden

“MAIDEN” My rating: B

97 minutes | MPAA rating: PG

Grab your daughters and granddaughters and make a family outing of “Maiden,” an awe-inspiring documentary about a bunch of young women who defied institutional sexism to risk their lives in an around-the-world sailing competition.

For that matter, bring along your sons and grandsons. They could probably use what “Maiden” is selling.

Alex Holmes’ film centers on Tracy Edwards, a young English woman who out of sheer chutzpah raised the money to buy a yacht, assembled an all-woman crew and entered the 1989 Whitbread Around the World Race, a harrowing and life-threatening enterprise executed in five distinct legs for a total of more than 30,000 miles.

“You have to be a bit crazy,” one interview subject observes of the long-distance sailors.

Amazing, old home movie footage going back to Edwards’ childhood exists, and among her Whitbread crew was a woman who kept a film record of the epic voyage. This means that Holmes is able to tell this story cinematically using archival sources, with regular digressions to talking-head interviews of the women today.

Profoundly affected by the death of her father and her mother’s futile struggle to maintain control of his hi-fi business — not to mention Mom’s second marriage to an alcoholic —  Edwards left home early.

Long a lover of the sea and ships, she got a gig crewing on a luxury rental yacht.  One of the boat’s customers was King Hussein of Jordan, who befriended the young woman and, learning of her fascination with sailing, got her a job as a cook on an otherwise all-male boat.

In fact, the yachting world was one big boy’s club, at best patronizing, at worst openly hostile. While she doesn’t report any overt sexual harassment, Edwards says she was clearly an unwelcome outsider. That’s when she came up with the idea of an all-female Whitbread crew.

The Maiden’s crew today

Getting support was a four-year struggle. Sponsors wanted nothing to do with the project — they feared being associated with what most experts thought was a tragedy waiting to happen.

“Women aren’t strong enough…you’ll die.”

Edwards persevered. Her friend King Hussein once again came to the rescue, providing her with funds to buy a used yacht Edwards renamed “The Maiden” (it required months of repairs and retrofitting for a long ocean voyage). Meanwhile Edwards assembled a nine-woman crew, with each member bringing something vital to the table.

The yachting world was dubious, with some dismissing the aluminum-hulled Maiden as “a tin full of tarts.” The women responded by donning swim suits before cruising into one of their ports of call.

All was not smooth sailing. On the eve of the race Edwards split with her navigator/first mate, assuming all of those duties herself. The burden was so great that after a few months she had no time to retreat to her bunk, catching naps when she could in her below-deck office.

Amazingly, The Maiden won the second and third of the race’s five legs, braving monster waves and Arctic weather (one of the competing yachts lost a man who fell overboard). Imagine being on a huge teeter totter that never stops.

At one point the crew awoke to find several inches of water in the bottom of the boat.  A military aircraft was called in to shadow them just in case they had to abandon ship.

On the eve of the race Edwards had told a reporter: “I hate the word ‘feminist.’ I like to do what I want to do.”

But she had a change of heart, particularly when massive crowds greeted her boat at ports along the route. She and her mates realized that to the world at large  they represented something bigger,  a change in the way women were  viewed.

If there’s a downside to “Maiden” it’s that the film tells us virtually nothing of what happened to these women over the last 30 years.  Do any of them still sail?  How has being part of the Maiden crew played out in their adult lives?

Nevertheless, this is an engrossing and inspiring saga , one that leaves the viewer with a profound respect for the men (and women) who go down to the sea in ships.

| Robert W. Butler