The Godforsaken Sea
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3.8 • 4 Ratings
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- £5.99
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- £5.99
Publisher Description
'One of the best books ever written about sailing'
Time
27,000 miles, three and a half to five months alone at sea, chilling casualty rates, the unrelenting strain of handling 60-foot boats day and night, the absolute certainty of weather and waves that could destroy them.
On 3 November 1996 sixteen sailors set out from the Bay of Biscay to embark on the Vendee Globe - a single-handed yacht race through the world's most treacherous and isolated seas.
Of the sixteen starters only six completed the course, six others withdrew or were disqualified, three were plucked from sinking boats and one disappeared without trace.
This is a book about the sea: how we are dawn to it and how it repels us and about why these men and women risk everything to embark on such a perilous journey.
TWENTIETH ANNIVESARY EDITION, WITH A NEW FOREWORD FROM THE AUTHOR.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
On November 3, 1996, the 16 solo sailboat racers of the third Vende Globe contest left the little French port of Les Sables dOlonne for a four-month round trip whose most trying feature would be a circumnavigation of Antarctica. Lundy, an experienced amateur sailor, followed the race on its Web site, on which the race organizers provided regular updates and on which some of the sailors posted bulletins. From the beginning, its obvious that the competitors are a bit more committed than your average weekend sailor. They hire sleep specialists to determine their personal best-sleep periods so theyll know when to put their boats on automatic pilot for a quick catnap. One sailor, Pete Goss, took a scalpel to his inflamed elbow, following a doctors faxed instructions while his boat heeled and all his instruments slid off their tray (so now Im frothing at the mouth, and it was quite funny, really). As Lundy describes these sailors encounters with the raging southern ocean and waves like a never-ending series of five- or six-story buildings... moving towards at about forty miles an hour, readers will get caught up in the race and in the fates of the 16 racers. Despite all the excitement, the book has a buffered feel. Quite simply, Lundy wasnt there. Its a measure of his skill, then, that he manages to make the action as palpable as he does, lacing his report of the race with a little maritime history, ocean science and allusions to the likes of Conrad and Joyce. This literate adventure book was a bestseller in Canada. $50,000 ad/promo; BOMC selection; author tour.
Customer Reviews
Amazing
My favourite book of all time... Utterly captivating, and all the more so due to the fact that it's all true!