Amazon.com
The Southern Ocean is the sailor's Everest. These are unquestionably the most dangerous waters in the world: hurricane infested, frigid, wholly unpredictable, and so remote, according to Derek Lundy, that "only a few astronauts have ever been further from land than a person on a vessel in that position." Encircling Antarctica, this fearsome body of water has terrorized sailors and wrecked the ablest of ships throughout maritime history. Imagine, then, a round-the-world, single-handed sailing race of the most extreme kind--no stopping, no assistance--requiring each lone sailor to spend half the total race distance (roughly 13,000 miles) fighting this nightmarish, merciless sea.
The race is the Vendee Globe, and The Godforsaken Sea is the story of the 1996-1997 competition. Fourteen men and two women began the race in Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. Six officially finished; three were wrecked and rescued; one sailor performed emergency surgery on himself mid-race; one perished. This is high adventure of the most gripping, perilous sort, demanding a tightly controlled, suspenseful narrative: "Visualize a never-ending series of five- or six-story buildings, with sloping sides of various angles ... moving towards [the sailors] at forty miles an hour. Some of the time, the top one or two stories will collapse on top of them." But Lundy delivers more, weaving a superior fabric of psychology and physics, action and reflection. Even the utter novice will emerge understanding the architecture of racing vessels, the evolution of storms, the physical and psychological courage required to survive five-and-a half months battling the ocean alone.
Sailing aficionados may already believe that the Vendee Globe is the pinnacle of extreme sports. With Lundy's help, armchair adventurers can dig in and hang on for the ride. --Svenja Soldovieri
From 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 [the boat] 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. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
YA-Arguably the most extreme sporting activity of any kind, the Vendee Globe is the "Everest of sailing races." In this four-month, single-handed circumnavigation, the competitors follow a hazardous route down through the Atlantic to the bottom of the world, around Antarctica, and back again. In the "godforsaken" Southern Sea, it is difficult just to survive, let alone race. In continuous gales unimpeded by land masses, hurricane-force winds whip up waves several stories tall. Freezing temperatures, poor visibility, icebergs, and sleep deprivation compound the challenge to the sailors, who hurtle through these waters at top speeds in lightweight 60-foot boats. To stay in the race, competitors must not accept help with repairs or stop for supplies. Lundy relates the suspenseful tale of the 1996-97 race, in which there were a string of disasters, several thrilling rescues, and one competitor lost at sea. Radical new boat designs were put to the test and humans were pushed beyond what would seem possible (one even performed emergency surgery upon himself). The author writes with such skill that even non-sailors will appreciate the conditions and feats he describes. He is equally adept at showing the personalities, motivations, and gifts of the men and women drawn to this challenge, and brings these unusual individuals to life. Musing on the meaning of it all, Lundy extends the perspective beyond the world of sports, and gives readers plenty to think about. This fine work of journalism should have broad and strong appeal.Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Freezing temperatures, poor visibility, icebergs, and sleep deprivation challenge the sailors who participate in the Vendee Globe sailing race. A suspenseful account of the rigors that tested the crew, and a look at the personalities and motivations of those involved. (Sept.) Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The New York Times Book Review
"You are swept up in his tale .... Lundy leads us eloquently through the minds of 16 intrepid sailors .... There is the vivid portrayal of Raphael Dinelli, the vagabond Frenchman, hitching himself to the upside-down keel of his boat like a horse to a post. There is the grim picture of Tony Bullimore, the aging solo sailor from England, chopping off a finger in a hatch cover as he struggles to safety in the shattered hull of his capsized vessel. And who can shut out the fear that must have ravaged Thierry Dubois, the Frenchman who clambered like a frightened seal onto the slick, cold back of his wave-swept sailboat?"
The New Yorker
"A mixture of history, gripping narrative, and provocative meditation, Lundy's book conveys "a wilderness both fascinating and appalling," which has changed little since Coleridge wrote about it in 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.'"
The Independent, UK
"This is a book which vividly transcends its immediate brief as a narrative of the race and those who sailed it, and presents a gripping and poetic evocation of the terrible and seductive power of the sea ....Like a skilled novelist, Lundy brings such thrilling episodes alive with his unerring eye for telling detail and a deft touch at pacing. And if Godforsaken Sea were just a first-rate piece of narrative journalism, it would be a fine book in itself. But it is far more than that. Lundy, as well as having a gift for journalism, is deeply read in his subject, and his book is as much a navigation through the literature of the sea as an account of a yacht race....Ultimately Godforsaken Sea goes a long way to answering that most perplexing question: why do otherwise sane and sensible people brave the unforgiving extremity of the waves? Since Homer, the capricious gods of the sea and the storms have both fascinated and frightened mankind. Lundy has triumphed in making the siren-call of the oceans intelligible to those, like me, who are resoundingly deaf to its attractions. It is a fine read, and one I can't recommend highly enough."
Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
"Eloquent.... Mr. Lundy explores how and why humans feel drawn to the extreme risks and almost inevitable disasters that single-handedly sailing the Southern Ocean entails ....Mr. Lundy not only makes stirring narrative drama but also draws the lineaments of an archetypal hero, a human driven by fear, addicted to adrenaline, in need of the edge."
From Booklist
The Vendee Globe is the only solo, around-the-world sailing race that is not in legs and that disqualifies entrants from either receiving assistance or going ashore. The section of the race circling Antarctica, however, is what makes the Vendee the world's most difficult sailing competition. In the ship-swallowing southern seas, Vendee skippers confront a six-to eight-week near-constant onslaught of hurricane conditions. Skippers go days without sleep, enduring brain-scattering storm racket, frequent capsizing, and a steady stream of concussive 50-foot waves. Amazingly, Vendee boats are designed to surf these colossal walls of water, as well as to right themselves when their masts dip over and touch the ocean's surface. Centering on the tragic 1996^-97 Vendee Globe, Lundy goes deep inside every aspect of this elite, French-dominated sport. Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air (1997) showed the potential demand for well-written adventure-sport accounts; expect this title to generate similar interest. Dane Carr
From Kirkus Reviews
``They surfed at breakneck speeds of twenty-five knots or more down waves like steep hills in winds of near-hurricane strength'': Just another day on the Vende Globe, one of those single-handed, round-the-world sailing races that ``answer to the needs of sailors eager to reach their uttermost limits,'' vibrantly captured by Lundy (Scott Turow: Meeting the Enemy, not reviewed). The Vende Globe demands that sailors take their boats 27,000 miles, unassisted and nonstop (the winner takes about 15 weeks), from France down to Antarctica, pull a clockwise turn about the Pole, then beat it back to France. This means that most of the time the boats will be in the Southern Ocean, Lundy points out, that malevolent stew of relentless, homicidal low-pressure systems that are also known as the roaring forties, furious fifties, and screaming sixties. Lundy follows the 199697 race, which featured the surreal contemporaneity of some boats finding the charmed path while others were so piteously beaten by heavy weather they would have been happy with 80-foot waves and at least a part of their masts. Call it apocalyptic sailing in what one sailor terms a miserable, mean, vicious place,'' the kind that attracts sailors not given to solemn ecstasy; they court this insanity and it all feels a little pathological. Few got to enjoy ``the exhilarating flat-out, downwind rush of Southern Ocean sledding''; more typical were acts of extreme heroism. You don't abandon someone in trouble in so remote a place; at one moment they sail through the point on earth farthest from land, some 1,660 miles out. ``Only a few astronauts have ever been farther from land than a person on a vessel at that position.'' And the astronauts weren't in a capsized sailboat, with a finger chopped off, up to their neck on a freezing ocean, and without food or water. Lundy does a marvelous job of keeping all the contestants in the action and unspooling this tale of high-seas terror with flair rather than melodrama. (Book-of-the-Month Club selection; $50,000 ad/promo; author tour) -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Home
