Lundy, Derek. Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World’s Most Dangerous Waters. Algonquin Books, 2000.
Reason read: June is the perfect month for an ocean voyage.
I would call the Vendee Globe sailing’s answer to the Barkley Marathons. The rules of the 27,000 mile race make the endeavor one of the most challenging competitions in the world. Sailors must sail solo without a crew. Once underway sailors cannot receive help from anyone on shore, either. They can moor their boat for a stop to make repairs, but they themselves cannot step foot beyond the high tide mark. At the time of publication the minimum funding needed to enter and prepare for the Vendee Globe was four million pounds. Only the truly dedicated (or insane) attempt the Vendee Globe.
Lundy, an avid sailor himself, chronicles the trials and tribulations of the sixteen sailors attempting the 1996-1997 Vendee Globe. He focuses most of the adventure on the extreme weather conditions around the most difficult leg of the race, the Southern Ocean. Only six of the sixteen vessels to enter the race will finish. As a result of the outcome of the 1996-1997 Vendee Globe race officials created new rules, making boats safer for future competitions.
I appreciated the anatomy of a ocean vessel I have never been aboard. Even more than that, I thrilled to learn the Beauford Wind Scale: the assigned number to the force of the wind and corresponding wind speed in knots, miles per hour, meters per second and kilometers per hour; the World Meteorological Organization categories (calm to hurricane); and what the water looks like from the land (mirror to air filled with foam and the sea completely white with driving spray. You know that the weather is terrible when you cannot tell the sea from the sky from the clouds.
Confessional: I have always been a dreamer about the idea of reincarnation. To think that a fellow sailor came back as an albatross to keep Chaband company was pure magic.
In the very beginning of Godforsaken Sea Lundy describes the capsizing of the boats of Dinelli, Bullimore, and Dubois. Cruelly, he leaves you hanging as to their fates.
Quote to quote, “It is interesting to contemplate what combination of compulsion and desires drives these sailors to the Southern Ocean” (p 177).
Confessional: I have a friend who is not necessarily all that good with boats. He definitely will not be reading Godforsaken Sea anytime soon. Most definitely not.
Other harrowing stories about trying to sail around Cape Horn:
- The Bounty Mutiny (Bligh)
- Two Years Before the Mast (Dana)
- My Old Man and the Sea (Hays)
Author fact: Lundy was trained to be a lawyer but decided to do something different.
Book trivia: there are no photographs in Godforsaken Sea.
I didn’t think it would be possible for Godforsaken Sea to mention music, but I was wrong: the Who and the Platters.
BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Adventure By the Book: Nonfiction” (p 9).
~*LunaSea*~ 