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
This story is from the July 2024 edition of Yachting Monthly UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the July 2024 edition of Yachting Monthly UK.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
Mile-long RNLI flotilla for 200th anniversary
As the RNLI celebrates its 200th anniversary this year, more than 40 rescue vessels formed a flotilla more than a mile long in Poole in May.
Ella Hibbert to sail to Norway and Russia in Arctic preparation
Intrepid 27-year-old sailor Ella Hibbert has made the difficult decision to delay her departure to sail solo around the Arctic circle until next year, but will instead depart this summer on a training expedition to Norway and Russia in preparation.
Orcas sink a yacht in the Strait of Gibraltar
A pod of orcas attacked and sank a 15m yacht in Moroccan waters in the Strait of Gibraltar in May, the latest in a series of encounters in the area that have sunk five yachts in the past four years, the Spanish maritime authorities reported.
Why Pip Hare needs you now
Sailing with Pip Hare last week reminded me of my father’s sailing mantra: ‘It’s all about drag.’
ADVENTURE THE CALL OF THE SOUTH SEAS
What is the call of the South Seas? The Hoiland family were curious to find out, so they set off west to explore. This is the story of their year sailing through the islands and atolls of French Polynesia
HOW TO DODGE GALES IN THE ISLES OF SCILLY
Ken Endean tries a two-anchorage strategy
Picking up fore and aft moorings
Mooring fore and aft can be a fiddly process, never more so than in Cornwall's Polperro. If you can do it here, says Rachael Sprot, then you can do it anywhere
TECHNICAL PURCHASING POWER
Sam Fortescue explains how to check you have the power needed to handle your running rigging safely - and how to fix it if you don't
NEW GEAR
Dennis O'Neill reviews the latest products designed to make sailing safer and easier
'NEVER BEFORE HAVE I SAILED IN SUCH WILD WEATHER'
When Jeremy Edwards and his sister were hit by a 'weather bomb' en route to Tonga it gave him a new-found respect for his sister's skippering ability