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| Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World's Most Dangerous Waters | 
 enlarge | Author: Derek Lundy
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (64 reviews)
Sales Rank: 1046707
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 312
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.1
ISBN: 1565122291
Dewey Decimal Number: 797.1246
EAN: 9781565122291
ASIN: 1565122291
Publication Date: May 21, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Godforsaken Sea is the hair-raising account of the world's most demanding, dangerous, and deadly sailing race. Around the world, one sailor, one boat, no stops, no assistance. Author Derek Lundy's vivid book follows the field of the 1996 - 1997 Vendee Globe through the race's grueling four-month circumnavigation of the globe, most of it through the terror of the Southern Ocean. Lundy narrates the race through the eyes and experiences of sixteen sailors - fourteen men and two women - who embdoy the best and most eccentric aspects of our human condition. There's 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. With the literary touch of Saint-Exupery and Conrad, Derek Lundy harnesses hurricane-force winds, six story waves, icebergs, and deafening noise. And he 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.
Amazon.com Review
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 59 more reviews...
 Godforsaken book? April 29, 2008
I'm sure this title has been taken already for a review, but you need to be warned.
I acquired the book because I have a budding interest in sailing, and was looking for some sort of inspiration.
This is one of the worst books I have read in a long time.
It may even be the worst book I have ever read--period.
If I ever hear another word about "Autessier" or "Moitessier" for as long as I shall live, I shall vomit.
These men may be greater sailors than I will ever be, but this book singlehandedly destroyed my perception of them. I never wish to hear another word about them again.
This books was one endless worshiping drone about "great" (so we are told over and over) yachtsmen and the sea sprinkled in between with bits of the event the book is supposed to be about (what was that again?). On and on he quotes extensively from one Frenchman to the next lavishing ever more sickening fawning adjectives to describe how superhuman he believed these individuals were.
("When you are alone with the sea, that is the measure of a man. You and the sea--alone. A man must face his fear with the sea, and come to grips with them. The sea is not for boys, but for exceptional men. Moitessier understood this unlike any other man since Slocum. He faced the sea alone and conquered..." On and on he goes like this for chapter after chapter after chapter!)
It is when he mentioned that he was atheist or agnostic that it became "clear" why. The author has abandoned the worship of a God to worship other human beings. Some may find this offensive, but the book is that bad. It badly needed some sort of explanation.
I must admit, that for my own sanity I had to skip large tracts of this book.
 Godforsaken Sea October 18, 2007
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
A Thorough Dissection of An Amazing Race June 18, 2007
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.
Often thrilling, informative December 11, 2006
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.
 Or: How The French Seem To Do Everything Just A Little Bit Better. August 1, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
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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