Liz Wardley

Ocean Yacht Master
Maiden

Liz’s path to her first Ocean Race is full of the elements of a great adventure story. She grew up on boats in Papua New Guinea where she learned the value of being able to handle many aspects of marine maintenance. As a young adult working on sailboats in France, she heard about an all-female race team in Spain. Not entirely sure where she was headed, she hitchhiked down the continent and made her way to the boat - where she was told no. Heading back to France, and without any cell phone or email address, she gave the skipper her father’s fax number in Papua New Guinea and her teammate’s cell number in France. That long chain of communication eventually led to her making her way down to Cape Town - another new location for her - to join the Ocean Race just before the Southern Ocean portion. This was an amazing experience for her, and she went on to race around the world twice again. Skippering the Maiden yacht for parts of The Maiden Factor’s current world tour to raise funds for girls’ education, Liz’s favorite parts of the sails are sitting on the deck as she’s traveling in open water and using her imagination to envision what it was like when Maiden was racing and breaking records and supporting women.