Or: How The French Seem To Do Everything Just A Little Bit Better.

books:


	• Godforsaken Sea: The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters Derek Lundy Anchor, 2000 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 64 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Godforsaken Sea

Godforsaken Sea is one of the best books I have ever read, particularly as I have sailed in the storm that wrecked the Fastnet race in 1995 so have some idea of what the single handed commpetors sailing round the Antartic endured.They were surfing down waves 30 meters high under full sail at 40 knots and if this was not enough had to gibe a 200 square Meter spinnaker at night without any help. Moreover it was not safe on deck so this is a stupendous feat.They could lose a rudder from flotsam and had to do all repairs to rigging alone.It is a pity that the paper-back edition does not have the photographs

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Often thrilling, informative

However disjointed, this story still excites and intrigues. I found myself staying up late to finish chapters and search the internet for more about the Vendee Globe boats and racers. I was fascinated by the racers' skill and courage as they faced life-and-death situations. Like another reviewer, I think I saw the method to the author's style, which provided narrative to create interest mixed with backstory and more technical data to give the narrative context. Although not seamless, I think the it works pretty well. Also, the story would not have been as compelling without that context.

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Or: How The French Seem To Do Everything Just A Little Bit Better.

The old adage "Don't judge a book by it's cover" is usually a good one, but the fact that the art director of GODFORSAKEN SEA actually used the exact same cover photo as Pete Goss's CLOSE TO THE WIND is an indication of what a supernumerary book this really is.

Derek Lundy is an (Anglo?-) Canadian attorney-turned-sailor-turned-author. He has some recreational blue water cruising experience. He is the most rabid Francophile I have ever come across (frankly, that alone would cost him a star with most reviewers). He describes GODFORSAKEN SEA as "the story of the Vendee Globe and Gerry Roufs" but it isn't. That's one of the problems with GODFORSAKEN SEA: Lundy isn't ever quite certain what this book is about, and so he hopscotches from one topic to another and back again like a frantic capuchin monkey.

If it were the story of Gerry Roufs (the only Canadian entrant in the 1996-97 Globe Vendee, and the only sailor to lose his life), GODFORSAKEN SEA would be a fine book. Lundy clearly identifies with Roufs, a (French-) Canadian attorney-turned sailor, rather like himself. Still, we find out relatively little about Roufs, his life, or his boat. Roufs may have disappeared in a gale, but he was a human being, never a cypher; he had a full life, which Lundy does poorly in reporting, and it's a shame, because GODFORSAKEN SEA could have been a fine memorial to the man.

Lundy's attempts to draw parallels between the squalls he's sailed through and the hundred foot waves and hurricane winds of the Southern Ocean are sincere attempts to identify with the solo circumnavigators of the Vendee on some level. They may seem silly but they're forgivable.

What isn't forgivable is Lundy's chaotic approach to the story. One minute he is mourning Gerry Roufs, the next he is singing the praises of each of the French entrants, then afterward he warns us perseveratively about the nasty conditions of the Southern Ocean. He takes a breath to discuss racing yacht design, and then he is reminiscing about his sailing experiences. A few asides are thrown in about the entrants' earlier sailing experiences, and he's back to weatherfax technology, Bordeaux wine or straightforward (but incomplete) race reportage: All this, over and over and over.

GODFORSAKEN SEA is in desperate need of an editor, but editing probably would have reduced this book to a third of it's 272 pages, making it less marketable. As it stands, GODFORSAKEN SEA isn't quite Godforsaken; but it sure could use a prayer or two. Pete Goss's CLOSE TO THE WIND is a better written book about the same Globe Vendee, and if it focuses on Goss more exclusively, at least it isn't suffering from literary Attention Deficit Disorder.

TWO AND A HALF STARS: All based on the innate quality of the story of the 1996-97 Globe Vendee.

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A Thorough Dissection of An Amazing Race

This book hovers between the thrill of reading an exciting story about life and death situations during solo sailing on the open ocean and the tedium of absorbing a barrage of information about the world of sail racing. Still, Derek Lundy manages this balance with reasonable skill. The story is well researched and the writing is competent, if at times a bit heavy. My only real complaint is that the flow of information could have been better organized to make it easier for the reader to keep track of the characters and their constantly changing status during the race. Well worth the read if you have any interest in stories about people who risk their comfort and their lives to endure and survive earth's most challenging environments.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

"The best book ever written about the terrifying business of single-handed sailing--.  Lundy tells a harrowing tale, as tight and gripping as The Perfect Storm or Into Thin Air."--San Francisco Chronicle

A chilling account of the world's most dangerous sailing race, the Vendée Globe, Godforsaken Sea is at once a hair-raising adventure story, a graceful evocation of the sailing life, and a thoughtful meditation on danger and those who seek it.

This is the story of the 1996-1997 Vendée Globe, a solo sailing race that binds its competitors to just a few, cruelly simple rules: around the world from France by way of Antarctica, no help, no stopping, one boat, one sailor. The majority of the race takes place in the Southern Ocean, where icebergs and gale-force winds are a constant threat, and the waves build to almost unimaginable heights.  As author Derek Lundy puts it: "try to visualize a never-ending series of five- or six-story buildings moving toward you at about forty miles an hour."

The experiences of the racers reveal the spirit of the men and women who push themselves to the limits of human endeavor--even if it means never returning home.  You'll meet the gallant Brit who beats miles back through the worst seas to save a fellow racer, the sailing veteran who calmly smokes cigarette after 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."

Derek Lundy elevates the story of one race into an appreciation of those thrill-seekers who embody the most heroic and eccentric aspects of the human condition.

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