A great movie, and not just for sailors. Anyone who appreciates an underdog story will enjoy this film. Well deserved Oscar nod.
But I am not so happy about the Ocean Globe Race news. Not that I don't think Tracy or the boat is up to the challenge; it's the race organization that causes me concern. It's the same group (Don McIntyre) who ran the recent reboot of the 1968 Golden Globe challenge. A great idea, but lots of management problems. The idea was to replicate the challenges the 1968 racers faced; toward that end, there were lots of restrictions on the types of boats that could race, as well as the technology they could use. You might not agree with all of the somewhat arbitrary rules, but everyone supposedly knew what they were going in. The big problems came in the enforcement of those rules. Mr. McIntyre enforced the rules against some of the competitors, but not others, and wound up changing the rules in the middle of the race. In the end, the winner of the race had clearly used banned spectra line to fix his breaking spreaders. No penalty was assessed. Can't have the bad press that would attach if the winner was disqualified. And did I mention: he's a personal friend of Mr. McIntyre?
Regardless, the retro vibe of the race has clearly caught on. They're running the race again, and have now expanded the concept to this Whitbread-style reboot. I came away from Maiden with a great respect for Tracy and the crew; for her sake, as well as all of the other participants, I hope Mr. McIntyre adopts a more professional approach to the race management. Or maybe the seat-of-the-pants management style is a feature he wants to stress?