On demand: "Maiden"

You could see it as a sign of skewed cinematic priorities that that accursed mariner Donald Crowhurst has inspired three (very different) films - 2006's Deep Water, 2017's Crowhurst and 2018's The Mercy - despite failing to achieve whatever it was he was trying to do. By way of a counterpoint, we might well consider 2018's Maiden, Alex Holmes's documentary tribute to Tracy Edwards MBE, skipper of the first all-female crew to compete in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. Holmes's film takes a conventional form: its backbone is a long and frank interview with Edwards, supplemented by contributions from her crewmates and archive and race footage. Yet this is one of those stories that raises interesting questions and fascinating points (and, in passing, points up exactly where the solitary and morbidly self-sufficient Crowhurst took a wrong turn). It is, on some level, a more spectacular variant of the old yarn about a woman finding her place in the world; this woman has to circumnavigate it. Edwards, who by her own admission had been suspended from school no less than 26 times, entered her twenties as a dropout and a party girl. Pressganged by peers into stewardessing on holiday-resort charter boats, she began to learn the ropes, however, and eventually emerged as someone who might tackle the challenges involved in competitive sailing. Again, she got there the hard way: she completed her first Round the World race as a chef, catering for grizzled old seasalts who at best tolerated her presence, and at worst were openly condescending, often contemptuous. For her second go, in 1989, she was in charge - and, unlike Crowhurst, she wasn't alone.

It was a challenge nevertheless, as Holmes makes abundantly clear. Edwards had to seek out comparably experienced female sailors; their first task was patching up a fairly shonky-looking vessel, quite possibly the last ship in the shop; then she had to overcome both last-minute crewing issues and her own internalised reluctance to lead. That archive flags up Edwards' determination, her entrepreneurship (which included striking a sponsorship deal with King Hussein of Jordan) and her need to overturn the expectations of onlookers. (Intriguingly, her younger self appears militant in rejecting any attempt to dub the crew's efforts as feminist. More internalisation?) It also paints a fairly damning picture of the attitudes displayed by fellow competitors and the media covering this boat's progress. (The Guardian was among the sniggerers, its sailing correspondent Bob Fisher notoriously billing the boat as "the tinful of tarts".) Then there is the footage of the race itself, all the more spectacular for not being the sort of sporting event one sees much of outside of the Olympic cycle. We watch as the boats leave each port, landmasses disappearing in favour of all-enveloping ocean; reference points seem to disappear altogether once the flotilla reaches Antarctica; blurry onboard footage captures the ladies standing at crazy angles, being strafed by huge plumes of spray while trying to tack sails. Gradually, this story gathers in momentum and import: you see it most obviously in the swelling crowds gathering in every harbour to cheer this crew home. And by Maiden's final stretch, we number among those multitudes. They did it, we tell ourselves. Whatever the hardships they encountered, whether this achievement was feminist or not: they actually did it.

Maiden is now available to rent via Prime Video, YouTube and the BFI Player, and on DVD through Dogwoof.