Just six years after Maiden captivated the sailing world by becoming the first all-female team to compete in the Whitbread Round the World Race, team Mighty Mary was assembled to do the same in the America’s Cup. A new documentary, out now, takes us behind the scenes of the campaign, from crew tryouts through to the heartbreaking final races of the selection series.
Despite secure funding from Bill Koch, the Mighty Mary campaign faced uphill battle after battle from the start. There was less than a year to prepare, and several of the athletes had never sailed before, let alone on an America’s Cup boat. The team also faced gendered skepticism from the press, public, and their competitors alike. A late delivery of their competition boat meant that half of the challenger series was raced in an old boat while the other half was spent learning the new one. And then, without spoilers, certain tactical decisions by management undermined both the project and the athletes who had fought so hard to be there.
The film straddles 30 years of both progress and regression on the part of gender equality in the sport. Modern and historic footage of the Mighty Mary crew on the water is blended throughout the film, shown side by side almost as if to merge the past and present. The interviews, too, reflect an interesting spectrum of perspectives, some that look back with more modern sensibilities, others that don’t.
Without discussing it directly, the film seems to question whether current efforts towards gender equity are falling short. Especially in light of the most recent America’s Cup effort at inclusion, Mighty Mary was something of a revelation back in 1995.
In 2024 Women and Youth America’s Cups were created to start a talent pipeline up to the Auld Mug in response to criticism about the persistence of all-male teams. This led some to ask, “are there really no female sailors who could be ready to compete before the next Cup?” It’s a different boat and a different era, but an entire team of women with just ten months of training going up against Dennis Connor’s Stars & Stripes and beating them suggests otherwise.
The film was directed by Mary Mazzio, an award-winning documentary filmmaker, 1992 Olympic rower, and founder and CEO of 50 Eggs Films, “an independent production company focused on moving the needle on crucial issues.” She is the recipient of a Ricky Martin Foundation Humanitarian Award, two Gracie Awards, and an NAACP Image Award nomination.
From a storytelling perspective, the film follows the Mighty Mary team ethos of having no main characters. The filmmakers instead have done an exhaustive job of interviewing, and the story is told by a Greek chorus of sailors and coaches from all three American teams involved. This works but may have you regularly checking back on the lower thirds to remind yourself who’s chiming in.
The dual narration by Elizabeth Banks and Hugh Jackman rings as a bit canned at times but ultimately does a good job contextualizing a complicated sport for non sailors. There are perhaps slightly more f-bombs than you’d want for showing the film to a youth sailing program, but for teenagers it’s probably fine.
For those of us who came of age after Mighty Mary’s run for the Cup, it’s an important film. Knowing there was an all-female team that tried for the title of Defender is completely different from seeing how extraordinarily close they actually came. And whether you were there to watch it unfold first hand or not, the film is well worth a watch, taking you behind the scenes of a campaign that was all heart and grit. Besides, who could resist spending a few hours back in the pomp and circumstance of the America’s Cup yesteryear?
This article was originally published in the October 2026 issue.
