Four stars. Rated PG, and needlessly, for mildly salty language
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.19.19
The only thing better than a captivating underdog drama is a captivating underdog documentary.
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| Although her capable and resourceful crew members handle their various tasks with skill, skipper Tracy Edwards (left) is equally involved with every aspect of the yacht she has dubbed Maiden. |
Director Alex Holmes’ Maiden is mesmerizing: an absorbing depiction of one person’s determination to triumph despite odds and obstacles that the word “overwhelming” cannot adequately convey. And — even more important — this is a thoroughly satisfying empowerment saga, which traces a young woman’s resolve to penetrate a rather unusual (but still insufferable) gender barrier.
Let it be said: Tracy Edwards is an extraordinary individual.
Seventeen yachts and 167 crew members participated in 1973’s debut Whitbread Round the World Race. This highly competitive event subsequently has taken place roughly every three years (and since 2001, with a change of sponsorship, has been known as the Volvo Ocean Race).
For more than a decade, women played almost no role: not as crew, and certainly not as skippers. Indeed, the very concept of a woman participating was greeted with sexist, dismissively jeering smirks that bordered on the superstitious: like sailors who regarded the killing of an albatross as bad luck.
At first blush — as the opening chapter of Holmes’ film makes clear — Edwards seems an unlikely champion to go up against the yachting world’s impregnable gender barrier. Unlike most who participate in the annual race, she didn’t grow up in a sailing family; she also had a troubled childhood, dropping out of school and running away at 16, in order to flee an antagonistic, alcoholic stepfather.
But she finds a new family, of sorts, when she joins a hard-partying tribe of boat crew gypsies, working as a cook and stewardess on private vessels and for-hire yachts that ferry tourists between island resorts. All these years later, a blaze of excitement illuminates Edwards’ gaze, as she thinks back to how quickly this new, exhilarating lifestyle became an epiphany moment.
Holmes and editor Katie Bryer blend intimate, on-camera recollections by Edwards, and other participants, with an impressively diverse assortment of archival footage (some of it obviously obtained under quite hazardous conditions, as the story proceeds). Holmes was blessed by the availability of so much video; it’s almost as if somebody knew, so many decades ago, that Edwards was destined to become a “chosen one.”
(“My mum collected everything,” Edwards acknowledges, in the film’s press notes. “Tea towels, cups, badges. Took 10 million photos. Recorded everything on the news, in every country. If she was in the UK and heard that something was on the news in Australia, she would track it down.”)
Immersion in this sailing world exposed Edwards to the Whitbread circumnavigational race, which she wanted to experience first-hand. She succeeded — just barely — when, at the last moment, she was hired as a cook on a British boat in 1985’s fourth race. She paid close attention, observing and absorbing as much as she could.
“When they’d let me up on deck,” the on-camera Edwards recalls, sardonically.
The home-movie footage from this adventure will prompt wincing sighs of embarrassment, over the way she’s treated by her male companions. But the worst is yet to come: Having gained this taste of racing thrills, Edwards then determines to skipper her own boat — with an all-female crew — in the next (1989) Whitbread Race.
To say the open-ocean yachting world’s response was contemptuous, from both participants and the associated phalanx of veteran sportscasters and journalists — also all male — would be the worst of understatements.
Women? Strike that; they’re always called girls. They don’t have the strength or skill. They’ll never find funding. They’ll never make it to the start, let alone successfully complete even the first leg. They’ll die at sea.
Hell, do that many professional female sailors even exist?
On one point, Edwards was sympathetic. Her first words in this film, heard as off-camera narration against a roiling, storm-tossed sea, is this sobering statement: “The ocean’s always trying to kill you.” No lie.
The matter of money proves the most daunting. Racing requires massive financial support, and no corporation was willing to attach its name to a (potentially disastrous) attempt led by an untried woman in her 20s. But Edwards does find a boat: a weather-beaten old yacht that had entered two earlier Whitbread races, but is in serious disrepair: “a wreck with a pedigree,” as she called it at the time.
But tearing down and refurbishing this vessel — now dubbed Maiden — would prove to be a Godsend; as a result, Edwards and her crew intimately learn about every cable, bolt and latch. As for that crew, its makeup reflects her strongest mutant power: a knack for finding and inspiring talent. One of the first to sign up is her girlhood best friend, Jo Gooding, who comes aboard as cook (and also behind-the-scenes videographer, and she did a smashing job).
Gooding and many of the original crew also are interviewed on camera; they remain as proud and feisty as they obviously were, back in the day. Aside from Gooding, the group includes a doctor, numerous sail trimmers and others handling helm, foredeck and rigging.
Edwards is candid about her shortcomings; she acknowledges having been a tough, aggressively focused taskmaster who probably held the crew together only because she worked as hard as everybody else — if not harder — and because they recognized and respected her determination. In a word, she was (is) inspirational; it’s easy to see in the archival footage.
Sponsorship finally comes from a most unusual source — a marvelous detail in itself — and proves once again that success often is a function of who you know.
Obviously, we wouldn’t have a film if Edwards and her crew hadn’t obtained the necessary funding, and successfully refurbished the Maiden; it’s therefore no spoiler to mention that the all-woman crew does indeed set sail with all the other contenders, on Sept. 2, 1989. The route covers 32,000 nautical miles, broken into six legs; the first begins in Southampton, England, with a destination of Punta del Este, Uruguay.
What subsequently transpires is exhilarating … when it isn’t heart-in-mouth. This saga has it all: suspense, life and death drama (literally), 50-foot waves on raging seas, near-mutiny, and a potentially disastrous leak that causes the Maiden to take on water.
Not to mention a constant barrage of insufferably patronizing commentary by other participants and the yachting press. When the latter pays any attention at all, prior to the start of the race, Edwards and her campaign are treated as (at best) an amusing curiosity.
Rest assured, that attitude shifts.
It’s indicative of the shameful treatment of women in sports, that this amazing story wasn’t brought to the big screen decades ago. (Consider, in the wake of the recent Women’s World Cup finale, that 28 U.S. female soccer players filed suit back in March, for pay equal to their male counterparts … who lost the Gold Cup to Mexico. In 2019, they have to suefor this!)
That said, this film’s release now certainly is well timed: a declarative strike against the bow of any chauvinists who still view women as little more than baby incubators.
The best documentaries are inspirational, and there’s no question this one will encourage young female viewers to become their best possible selves.
While the rest of us are equally enthusiastic, enthralled and excited.
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