Tracy Edwards MBE becomes Patron
We are hugely excited and honoured to announce that round the world yachtswoman Tracy Edwards is to become Patron of Ocean Warrior.
IN 1989 Tracy Edwards bloodied the nose of the sailing World which was then a male dominated, bigoted, chauvinistic domain. She captained the very first all-female crew in the Whitbread Round-the-World Yacht Race.
Up against huge pessimism, cynicism and downright aggressive opposition she showed the whole world that women were equals, if not betters, than their male counterparts.
Simply to sail 33,000 miles in the World's toughest oceans over a nine month period is endurance enough but to race and beat the men in the toughest leg, the Southern Ocean was incredible and aptly displays her tenacious and doggedly determined nature.
Having said that I have found her to be a kind considerate and absolutely delightful human being. Not easy to balance those components!
She very kindly sent us this message:
"The Oceans have been my life since I was a teenager. I love the awesome beauty, the serenity, the frenetic chaos and the overwhelming power. To think that we as humans have taken advantage of and abused our oceans to the point of serious damage is horrifying. Which is why I was honoured when Jim and Sam asked me to be Patron of their critically important project.
Over the next 11 years Ocean Warrior will train ordinary people from all walks of life and many nations to benchmark, measure, and monitor - ground-truth - exactly what is happening for our partner scientific organisations.
What’s more they will do this by the power of wind, teaching the participants to sail in the process.
This by anyone’s standards is an extraordinary endeavour and I’m so delighted to help them in any way I can."
I see this as a true milestone in the development of Ocean Warrior - to have such esteemed backing augurs so well for our future. Thank you so much Tracy from all the team here!
P.s. If any of you have missed seeing the film MAIDEN then I would thoroughly recommend watching it - a fabulous and inspirational story told brilliantly.