The Maiden yacht and its current all-female crew stopped in the Santa Barbara Harbor on Monday as part of its journey around the world. 
The Maiden yacht and its current all-female crew stopped in the Santa Barbara Harbor on Monday as part of its journey around the world. 
The Maiden yacht uses very different technology below deck compared to what it used during the history-making 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, Capt. Wendy Tuck said. 
The current crew members of the Maiden yacht are on a three-year worldwide journey fundraising for nonprofits that educate and empower women and girls. They made a stop in the Santa Barbara Harbor on Monday. 
The current crew members of the Maiden yacht are on a three-year worldwide journey fundraising for nonprofits that educate and empower women and girls. They made a stop in the Santa Barbara Harbor on Monday.
The Maiden yacht crew stopped in the Santa Barbara Harbor Monday as part of an ongoing worldwide journey to raise money for charities empowering and educating young women.
Locals had a chance to speak with the current crew, all women, about their three-year voyage around the globe, and visitors got to tour the legendary 58-foot sailing vessel.
Maiden raced into the history books as the first-ever all-female crew to sail around the world during a yacht racing competition more than 30 years ago.
“On deck, it pretty much looks the same, just a bit more modern though,” Capt. Wendy Tuck said. “Down below is completely different.”
The Santa Barbara Yacht Club helped organize the one-day event on the guest dock at the harbor.
“Santa Barbara Yacht Club was fortunate to welcome and host the iconic sailing boat Maiden and their team of accomplished women sailors to our community,” Commodore Scott Deardorff said. “This is the boat that showed the world in 1989 that a team of all women sailors can compete with the best in an arduous race around the world.
“The team of Maiden is now sailing around the world to promote and bring awareness to the issue of worldwide access to education for girls,” he continued. “We're proud to be a part of the Maiden adventure and mission.”
Tracey Edwards bought the yacht in 1987 to compete in the 1989-90 Whitbread Round the World Race, and the women in the crew broke barriers and surprised onlookers when winning the hardest leg of the yacht racing challenge.
The story is the centerpiece of Maiden, a documentary telling the groundbreaking story of Edwards, the skipper, and her crew.
Maiden and its crew are sailing around the world to raise money for several nonprofits aiming to boost women’s empowerment and education for girls.
Each crew member is promoting and raising money for one of six organizations — I AM GIRL, Just a Drop, the Orchid Project, Room to Read, The Girls’ Network and Positive Negatives.
The trip is supported by the Maiden Factor Foundation, which Edwards founded.
The famous boat was planning to travel south from Los Angeles to Chile, but an unexpected tropical storm off the coast to Mexico interrupted the crew’s plans, Tuck said.
The current crew extended its time along the California coast and sailed 60 hours north to Monterey and then Santa Barbara on the way south.
“It’s been awesome coming here,” Tuck said of Santa Barbara. “The mountains and the sea, it’s beautiful.”
Maiden is skippered by Tuck, who is the first female skipper to win a round-the-world yacht race, by winning the Clipper Race last year.
Tuck said she enjoys the sea.
“Being out in the middle of the ocean, where you can’t see land for weeks, it’s that feeling of isolation and freedom,” she said. “We don’t have Facebook, social media and we have limited email contact … and it’s that feeling of being out there (in the ocean).”
The current crew members also include Belinda Henry, Amalia Infante, Courtney Koos, Erica Lush and Mackenna Edwards-Mair.
— Noozhawk staff writer Brooke Holland can be reached at bholland@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.
