MAIDEN FACTOR

Tracy Edwards’ book ‘Maiden’, written with Tim Madge, tells a tale that has quite properly passed into legend. Tracy raises the funds, finds the boat of the same name and skippers the first all-female crew around the globe in the world’s greatest fully-crewed yacht race. The years 1989/90 were iconic for the Whitbread, with the likes of Peter Blake driving Steinlager II, Lawrie Smith with his redoubtable crew jockeying Rothmans, and Fisher & Paykel with Grant Dalton at the helm. The stress on Tracy throughout this book is almost unbelievable, but it is in the Southern Ocean, hammering down to Fremantle in Australia, that she really shows her mettle. The text comes in the form of her daily diary and it lays her soul frighteningly bare. In the extract below, she has just been relaying messages and standing by for Creighton’s Naturally, a maxi which had just lost a crewman. She has turned in exhausted, while inaccurate steering compasses have forced Maiden further north than she’d intended. Read on. I couldn’t put it down

November 14th 49°24’N, 19°05’E

I spent the whole day in a dreadful mood because we had gone too far north. When I finally thought I had sorted it all out, the satnavs packed up. I started praying my calculations had been right, but will have creamed past us last night.