READ ME: She Who Sails Title She Who Sails Creator (s) Patricia Mackinnon-Day patricia@mackinnon-day.com P.Mackinnon-Day@ljmu.ac.uk Film commissioned by Hull Maritime Museum Liverpool John Moores University Abstract In 2019, the Hull Maritime project commissioned me to create a new film responding to “What’s it Like to Be at Sea?” She Who Sails explores a range of personal insights by women seafarers about their passion, the dangers, challenges at sea, analogue, digital navigation and misogyny. I have been researching the lives and experiences of women seafarers, working with young female seafarers who skipper historic sailing ships around the UK coast. Also, as part of the film, I worked with Clare Drury on a soundtrack for the film sung by the Freedom Chorus Maritime Singers from Hull. This has been an exciting collaborative process. I presented Clare with a selection of historical texts and she then produced a series of beautifully arranged compositions. Overview The film will showcase the realities of today and throughout history, highlighting women's work on tall ships and their personal journeys and tenacity in succeeding. It acknowledges the value and significance of their expertise and contributions to the seafaring community, as well as the unique social interactions between the women on board and their courage and strength in succeeding in a predominantly male world. My aim for the film work 'She Who Sails' was to bring apparently uneventful and overlooked aspects of the sailing experience into visibility, to investigate the ordinary rather than the heroic and monumental, and to invite the viewer into a rarely seen world. The film weaves historical text, maritime film archives and behind-the-scenes footage to explore the realities of everyday sailing. It aims to give female sailors a voice and illuminate the stories of historic and contemporary female seafarers. It is a poetic, multi-layered composition exploring the challenges faced by women at sea, with the original soundtrack sung by Freedom Chorus Maritime Singers. Project Notes I spent several days filming on board the tall ships Pioneer and Irene, talking and observing the female sailors who are the main protagonists in She Who Sails. I also read a considerable amount of historical literature and archive material to try to comprehend what life at sea was like for women today and historically. I was particularly intrigued by Suzanne Stark’s Female Tars, which is probably one of the more harrowing insights. There were sixty women on board Sir John Arundel’s ships when they set out from Southampton in December 1379 to go to the aid of the Duke of Brittany, then fighting in Brittany. The women on board were married, widows and young ladies of rank. A gale struck the ships off the coast of Cornwall and it seemed that the whole fleet would be wrecked. As the wind continued to mount, the terrified men became convinced that the storm was a supernatural one caused by the presence of the women. According to a long-held superstition, even one woman at sea could bring forth a fatal storm and they had sixty with them. All sixty women were thrown overboard. The remedy failed, the storm continued to threaten the fleet, and twenty-five of Arundel’s ships were wrecked on islands off the Irish Coast. She Who Sails will become even more significant when it is screened at the refurbishment launch of Hull Maritime Museum, as part of the completed restoration of two historic ships and the new town centre public space development. The film will be coming home to Hull, a seafaring community, which feels fitting and appropriate. I look forward to receiving the visitors’ feedback, which will extend the narratives and yield more insights and knowledge. Keywords Women seafarers, archives, oral history, tall ships, history, health, Documents and links: https://maritimehull.co.uk/whats-happening/blogs/she-who-sails-by-patricia-mackinnon-day https://maritimehull.co.uk/projects/maritime-inspired-art Format of outputs URL: She Who Sails (password market) Will will need the MP4 download too Additional Information Language English Usage/Licensing Please cite : MacKinnon-Day, Patricia (2025) She Who Sails. [Data Collection] DOI https://doi.org/10.24377/LJMU.d.00000229  Data Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives. Funding Information [Hull maritime museum, Heritage fund, hull city council, royal museums Greenwich, LJMU) Related URLs https://maritimehull.co.uk/whats-happening/blogs/she-who-sails-by-patricia-mackinnon-day Contact For further information, contact: patricia@mackinnon-day.com Patricia.Mackinnon-Day@ljmu.ac.uk