A Voyage For Madmen

by PeterNichols (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  2002

  $3.76

  It lay like a gauntlet thrown down; to sail around the world alone and non-stop. No one had ever done it, no one knew if it could be done. In 1968, nine men - six Englishmen, two Frenchmen and an Italian - set out to try, a race born of coincidence of their timing. One didn't even know how to sail. They had more in common with Captain Cook or Ferdinand Magellan than with the high-tech, cyber-fed sailors of today, a mere thirty years later. It was not the sea or the weather that determined the nature of their voyages but the men they were, and they were as different from one another as Scott from Amundsen. Only one of the nine crossed the finishing line after ten months at sea. The rest encountered despair, sublimity, madness and death.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2001

  $4.23

  Nine people comprised of two Frenchmen, an Italian and six Englishmen, began the 1967 Golden Globe around the world yacht race. Only one completed the journey. This is the story of this endeavour. The goal was to sail around the world solo, a feat no one had yet achieved; to make matters just that extra bit tricky some of the sailors were total novices. The book analyses the fate of each sailor in turn. Nichols describes how the nine fought through storms and collisions, through the roaring 40s and the furious 50s, and how each man experienced those moments of solitary despair, lonely disappointment and occasional mystical elation that are unique to long-haul solo sailing. The technical side of yachtsmanship also comes under scrutiny while still aiming to prove accessible to those with little understanding of actual sailing methods.