HEATHER THOMAS
In leading her all-female crew to victory in the OGR, Heather Thomas has broken records and taken women’s sailing into the stratosphere
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. What a tremendous inspiration! In winning the Ocean Globe Race, the 27-year-old from Yorkshire has made history. Heather has topped Dame Ellen MacArthur’s second place in the Vendée Globe 2001 and Tracy’s record of second in class in the 1989/90 Whitbread Round the World Race.
Thomas is also the first woman skipper to win a fully crewed round the world race. And she didn’t just win, she and the Maiden crew beat the opposition on Tracy Edwards’ winning boat, which had sailed round the world seven times already.
This crew returned home to a royal welcome being met by Sarah, Duchess of York who had played ‘godmother’ to Tracy Edwards’ all-women team 34 years ago, and Princess Haya bint Al Hussein of Jordan and her children who sponsored Maiden’s refit for the OGR. It was her father, the late King Hussein of Jordan, who had sponsored Maiden’s original challenge through the Royal Jordanian Airlines. Queen Camilla also invited Heather, the crew and Tracy Edwards to lunch at St James’s Palace in honour of their success.
‘I’m so proud of this crew and what we have achieved. There is such a strong bond between us. We’ve achieved our goal of showing what women can do,’ says Heather, who led Tracy Edwards’ The Maiden Factor charity campaign on the water. Maiden is a global ambassador for the empowerment of girls through education.
Heather’s entry to sailing was much like that of Ellen MacArthur, who was brought up in landlocked Derbyshire. ‘My grandfather built a Mirror dinghy in the 1970s which was passed down to me and my dad. We learned to sail at Otley Sailing Club on a small dinghy lake a long way from the sea, then graduated to Laser and Pico dinghies.’
Her second break came at the age of 17 when she was invited to sail on the Ocean Youth Club’s northern sail training vessel James Cook. ‘I just loved it and knew instantly that this is what I wanted to do.’ She returned as a volunteer watch leader for further voyages and after leaving school, won a bursary from the Andrew Simpson Sailing Foundation to compete in three legs of the 2015/16 Clipper Round the World Race.
