THE 2023-24 OCEAN GLOBE RACE
The all-female Maiden crew have again made history, sailing 28,000 miles around the world to win the Ocean Globe Race. Heather Thomas is the first female British skipper to win a round-the-world race and her team aboard Maiden, backed by Tracy Edwards MBE, are the first all-female crew to win a global race. It doesn’t get better than this. Fourteen crews set out from Cowes on 10 September on the adventure of a lifetime, full of expectations for a race around the world. Seven months later, 10 returned, all changed by the experience – some saying they wanted to do it all again.
One of those was Heather Thomas, the skipper of the all-female crew aboard Maiden, in which Tracy Edwards and her team made history 34 years earlier by becoming the first all-female crew to compete in a round-the-world race.
Back then, Tracy and her Whitbread crew won two of the legs and finished 2nd in class, returning home to Cowes to a hero’s welcome. Heather and her team took the next step – winning the Ocean Globe Race outright! And Heather Thomas didn’t just win, she and her second generation Maiden crew thrashed the other 13 teams in a boat that had already raced four times around the globe.
Thomas, at 27, the youngest skipper in the fleet, was ecstatic. Talking about her crewmates, she said: ‘There is such a strong bond between us. We’ve achieved our goal of showing what women can do. I’m so proud of this crew!’
CELEBRATING DIVERSITY
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Esta historia es de la edición July 2024 de Yachting Monthly UK.
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I finally found the magic of the sea
I won’t be in theatres with a notebook as much as usual this month – time for some wider, wetter horizons – but may be musing, as I often do, on how rare it is for theatre to express a convincing reality about the oceans and the trade or pursuit of seafaring.
TECHNICAL GOLDEN OLDIES
Ken Endean looks back on the boats he has owned over 50 years and explains why the hull lines of older yachts continue to offer first-class handling
HOW IT WORKS MARKING
Many cruising yacht skippers mark very little on board their boats.
TECHNICAL INSTALLING A NEW ENGINE
When a mysterious loss of coolant jeopardised his sailing, Andy Du Port knew the time had tome to replace his yacht’s:veteran Volvo Penta
NEW GEAR
Dennis O’Neill rounds up the latest marine innovations, including developments in women’s sailing jackets
MARIE TABARLY HONOURING HER FATHER
Marie Tabarly took line honours in the Ocean Globe Race, surpassing her father’s record while racing aboard his famous 73ft ketch Pen Duick VI
HEATHER THOMAS SMASHING RECORDS
In leading her all-female crew to victory in the OGR, Heather Thomas has broken records and taken women's sailing into the stratosphere
MAIDEN MAKES HISTORY AGAIN
Being the first all-female crew to win a round-the-world race is seismic in itself, but the diverse nationalities of the crew are just as significant for the future of sailing
