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    Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World's Most Dangerous Waters
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    Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World's Most Dangerous Waters
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    Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World's Most Dangerous Waters
    Ebook357 pages6 hours

    Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World's Most Dangerous Waters

    By Derek Lundy

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    About this ebook

    “The best book ever written about the terrifying business of single-handed sailing . . . As tight and gripping as The Perfect Storm or Into Thin Air” (San Francisco Chronicle).
     
    Godforsaken Sea is the hair-raising account of the world’s most demanding, dangerous, and deadly sailing race—following the field of the 1996–1997 Vendée Globe through a grueling four-month circumnavigation of the earth, most of it through the terror of the Southern Ocean.
     
    Among the sixteen sailors are the gallant Brit who spends days beating back against the worst seas to save a fellow sailor; the Frenchman who bothers to salvage only a bottle of champagne from his broken and sinking boat; the sailor who comes to love the albatross that trails her for months, naming it Bernard; the sailor who calmly smokes a cigarette as his boat capsizes; and the Canadian who, hours before he disappears forever, dispatches this message: If you drag things out too long here, you’re sure to come to grief.
     
    Bringing to life hurricane-force winds, six-story waves, icebergs, and deafening noise—and blending maritime history, ocean science, and literary allusions—this true story lays bare the spirit of the men and women who push themselves to the outer limits of human endeavor—even if it means never returning home.
     
    “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.” —The New York Times
     
    “Godforsaken Sea is one of the best books ever written about sailing. . . . Lundy’s knowledge of sea lore and history is rich, his pace perfect, his intelligence full of energy. He differentiates each sailor with a novelist’s touch.” —Time
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateSep 20, 2012
    ISBN9781616202477
    Author

    Derek Lundy

    Derek Lundy is the author of Godforsaken Sea: The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters. He lives in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, with his wife and daughter.

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    Reviews for Godforsaken Sea

    4/5

    58 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Since I write naval fiction, I read A LOT of sea stories since that is the only way to get a good sense of what it is like to be in a terrible storm or just being at sea which, judging from diaries and letters, is often boring, even in wartime.This book is about a handful of people whose sanity one must call into question: the men and women who sail, by themselves, through the most dangerous waters in the world in the Vendee Globe race which lasts at least four months. For much of the time, they are in waters so stormy they can't see anything but the giant waves which surround them and reach the heights of large buildings. I would be scared enough to pee in my pants. Almost every one of these boats not only gets knocked down on a regular basis, that is the force of the wind on the sail simply knocks the boat over one hundred eighty degrees and if one is lucky, the weight of the keel brings the boat back up.Suffice it to say that this book is beautifully written, the descriptions of the sea in all of its most violent states are breathtaking. The author, Derek Lundy, is a sailor and author although he doesn't participate in these kinds of races. Like any good story, this one is told through the eyes of those who were there and we feel their fear, triumph, and courage. I've read this book four times. I wish I knew Mr. Lundy.
    • 5/5
      A fantastic read, the book brings to life the tremendous challenge involved on around the world, solo sailing, including the dangerous and stormy Southern Ocean. I loved this book, glad to have found it.
    • 2/5
      I really lost interest half way through and didn't finish it.
    • 4/5
      The Vendee Globe race is the
      pinnacle for sailors who want to
      push their racing skills to the limit.
      It’s a race around the world in single-
      man, very high-tech, fast sailboats
      that stretch technology and human endurance
      to their limits. The worst part of the
      25,000-mile race is the Southern Ocean, where
      waves reach unimaginable heights and the cold
      is never ending. Virtually half the race, some
      13,000 miles of it takes place in these nightmarish
      conditions.
      The 1996-1997 race was typical: of the fourteen
      men and two women who began the race
      one disappeared, another had to perform surgery
      on his own elbow following an injury one (Goss) became an instant and certifiable hero
      by beating his boat back against the wind to
      locate and rescue a capsized comrade just before
      death from exposure would have occurred
      and three were wrecked.
      Ironically, all who could, chose to finish the
      race even if they had been disqualified. The
      rules prohibit touching land except at the start
      or the finish. Two of the racers chose to sail
      back to the start, several thousand miles, for
      repairs rather than risk disqualifications. Others
      who were forced to stop for repairs continued
      on just to be able to finish the race. Lundy
      intersperses the intense high drama of his race
      narrative with fascinating insights into the
      world of the sailors and builders who spent millions
      preparing for the race. “Visualize a
      never-ending series of five- or six-story buildings,
      with sloping sides of various angles. . .
      moving toward the sailors at forty miles an
      hour. Some of the time, the top one or two
      stories will collapse on top of them.” Knockdowns,
      where a boat is flattened on its side,
      were common, and just the necessity of bracing
      against walls to prevent being thrown about
      was terribly wearing on the skippers.
      Sleep was so important it became a technical
      issue. Studies were conducted for many of
      the skippers to determine just how little sleep
      they could get by on and what times of day
      and what length of time were best for short
      naps. One discovered he could get by on six
      hours of sleep in a twenty-four hour period and
      could break it down into periods as short as
      thirty minutes. That was the theory. In actual
      practice, most got hardly any sleep at all. So
      many things could interrupt their sleep.
      Having to constantly brace oneself against
      often irregular motions of the boat required the
      development of new muscles and could be absolutely
      exhausting. They needed constantly
      to fix things that broke. The boats were all
      mono-hulled and had a heavy keel that extended
      below the bottom and would act like a
      pendulum, righting the boat even after it capsized
      — in theory — although those who had
      been through it said their nervous systems
      were never quite the same again. This movement
      could also put tremendous strain on the
      keel and the hull. The faster the boat, the less
      likely it is to capsize — operating, I suspect,
      similarly to a bicycle or motorcycle. They are
      thinner and have less surface area for the
      waves to pound on. They also right themselves
      easier. Multi-hulled boats are more stable inverted
      (but less likely to capsize), so skippers
      of these craft will cut hatches in the bottom so
      they can get out should one capsize. They also
      learned to surf down the huge waves at an angle,
      sometimes going twenty-five to thirty knots
      down the waves. It’s important not to exceed
      the maximum speed permitted by the autopilot,
      because if it loses control all hell breaks
      loose. Constantly monitoring how to attack
      each enormous wave at just the right angle
      can become very tiring. Pitch-poling
      (remember Perfect Storm?) Where a boat
      goes bow over stern is a real danger. Noise is
      another problem. The boats are built of
      very strong carbon fiber that has great strength
      and lightness but transmits sound very well.
      The noise of waves hitting the hull or even just
      rushing by could be deafening and took time to
      get used to it.
      It’s a miracle that any of them made it back
      given the horrible weather conditions, yet they
      seem to thrive on the danger and lack of sleep,
      all vowing to return again for the next Vendee
      Glove. A wild ride for us armchair sailors.