Maiden voyage

From Reading and Vilamoura, James Boyd brings news of Tracy Edwards' giant cat

Brian Thompson is currently skippering Maiden II

On board Maiden II at present is an interesting collection of male and female crew, as the only occasion it is expected that the boat will sail with an all-girl crew will be for their Jules Verne Trophy record attempt this winter.

Alongside Darvelid is fellow watch captain Finnish ocean racing veteran Miki von Koskull. Darvelid is probably one of the most experienced female multihull sailors in the world (short of Ellen MacArthur and Florence Arthaud) having campaigned everything from small trimarans to PlayStation. Last year she skippered the Open 60 Alphagraphics in the EDS Atlantic Challenge. Von Koskull is the only crew to have been consistently with Edwards since her Maiden days in the Whitbread.

Adrienne Cahalan, who sailed around the world on Heineken in the Whitbread four years after Maiden, is navigating. Emma Richards and Sharon Ferris both arrived in La Ciotat straight from Miami where they had just stepped off Amer Sports Too. Sam Davies recently left Shirley Robertson's Yngling Olympic campaign to join the team. All were with Tracy Edwards on board Royal & SunAlliance.

New to the programme are two French girls Mini sailor Anne Monmousseau and Christine Haffi.

Skipper on board at the moment is Rock God look-a-like Brian Thompson, who previously was main helmsman on PlayStationand who has a formidable talent and experience driving these large multihulls at speed. Other male crew on board are Australian Paul Larsen, the one time Team Philips crewman who ended up sailing The Race with Tony Bullimore on board Team Legato, Regis Brule (brother of the currently absent former Royal & SunAlliance crewwoman Fred Brule), Stan Delbarre, Fraser Brown, Ben Wood, the rigger from Hamble who has recently been working with Prada and Greg Homann, an Australian friend of Adrienne Cahalan.

A recent and most welcome 11th addition to the crew is Spanish cat specialist, Guillermo Altadill (right). Altadill has recently been sailing on Assa Abloy in the Volvo Ocean Race, but significantly was a regular crewman on Club Med throughout Grant Dalton's tenure and sailed on board her during The Race. His insight will be most valuable to the Maiden II crew.

How is this working out? See page three...