Maiden

As Alex Holmes’s exciting documentary begins, the camera captures a blustery day on the roiling sea as Tracy Edwards’s voiceover warns that the “ocean is always trying to kill you.” Back in 1989, when Edwards was in her early 20s, she mortgaged her home to restore an old boat that she re-christened Maiden. Edwards then assembled the first all-female crew to enter the grueling nine-month open sea Whitbread Round the World Race (now called the Ocean Race). As a rebellious youngster, Edwards ran away from home in the aftermath of her father’s death, settling in a British seaside town. Since girls weren’t allowed to crew, she took a job as cook/cleaner on a yacht. Mixing archival footage with insightful interviews and wry social commentary featuring Edwards and her competitive crew members, Holmes delivers an empowering sports tale, filled with surprising suspense. Unfortunately, the only area he doesn’t explore is how Edwards accumulated enough seafaring knowledge to catapult directly from cook/cleaner to yachting captain. Holmes and Edwards do make the point that sponsorships were so difficult to acquire that she eventually appealed to King Hussein of Jordan, who she befriended when she was a lowly deckhand. Once committed to the 33,000-nautical mile voyage for 1989-90, Edwards was beset by problems, including mocking misogynistic journalists who referred to the Maiden as “a tin full of tarts,” the departure of cohort Marie-Claude Heys, and the brutally grueling Uruguay-to-Australia passage in which temperatures dropped down to -20 degrees. A rousing, real-life feminist adventure, this is recommended. (S. Granger)