Maiden review – raging seas and sexist squalls

For the International Women's Day 2019 a souvenir : voyage of a courageous pioneer... Maiden

Maiden made history in 1990 when its female crew, led by Tracy Edwards, became the first to sail the Whitbread Round the World Race. 

Photo : Dogwoof

From The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw

Tracy Edwards is the British sailor who made history in 1989 by skippering the first all-female crew in the Whitbread Round the World yacht race.
This film tells her story and those of her crew members, as they faced sexist squalls from male competitors, who as greying interviewees don’t look best pleased even now to be talking about when and how Tracy beat them.
There was also the press.
The Guardian’s Bob Fisher comes in for some criticism.

Edwards showed a staggering amount of leadership and energy on dry land, as well as at sea, assembling her crew and persuading the King of Jordan to provide vital sponsorship.
The boat was coyly called Maiden, and Alex Holmes’s film also shows how it punningly bore the banner “Maiden Great Britain”.
Their success was also a matter of patriotic pride.

https://www.maiden.film 

The incredible, against-all-odds story of sailor Tracy Edwards, who skippered the first all-female international crew in the 1989 Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race.

Holmes recreates their adventure, using a lot of home movie footage of her childhood and early life – this appears to be the real thing, although sometimes I wondered if faux Super 8 reconstruction was being used – and also the TV coverage from 1989, with much toe-curling Partridgean commentary from Frank Bough and Fred Dinenage.
At one stage in the race, Edwards cunningly manipulated the paparazzi by getting the entire crew to wear glamorous swimming costumes on deck: they each look surreally like Princess Diana aboard Dodi Fayed’s yacht – but maybe that is simply the era.

Tracy Edwards experienced her “first real taste of sexism and misogyny” when she sailed around the world with an all-female crew from 1989 to 1990 — but almost 30 years later, “Maiden” director Alex Holmes doesn’t think much has changed.

There is something that the film doesn’t address as clearly it could have done.
In 1989, Edwards was asked if she was a feminist and she said no – and that she hated the word. It’s probably clear enough what she meant: she just wanted an equal shot at yachting success, just as the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher once wanted an equal shot at political success.
But, given that the present-day Edwards is interviewed at length, Holmes could perhaps have given her another chance to consider that question.
At all events, it pays due homage to Edwards as a courageous pioneer.

Links :

• CNN : Tracy Edwards: 'Maiden was either met with antipathy or aggression'
• Vanity Fair : “Sailing Was About Freedom”: The Gripping True Story of the Maiden