A Voyage For Madmen: Nine men set out to race each other around the world. Only one made it back ... - Couverture souple

Nichols, Peter

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1846684439 ISBN 13 : 9781846684432

Editeur : Profile Books Ltd, 2011

Synopsis

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, extreme sailors of today, a mere forty 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 even death.

A propos du livre

Présentation de l'éditeur :

In 1968, nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. It was a feat that had never been accomplished and one that would forever change the face of sailing. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.

In this extraordinary book, Peter Nichols chronicles a contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems. A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms in the Southern Ocean, and of those riveting moments when a split-second decision means the difference between life and death.

Revue de presse :

“Spellbinding.” (Wall Street Journal)

“A riveting account of the triumphant human spirit.” (Publishers Weekly)

“A haunting story...[that] succeeds on the grandest scale.” (The Oregonian)

“Reads like a suspense novel.” (Booklist)

“Fascinating...A great story...an excellent examination of the world’s first nonstop, solo race around the world.” (San Diego Union Tribune)

“Extraordinary ...One of the most gripping sea stories I have ever read.” (Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm)

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Profile Books Ltd
• Date d'édition: 2011
• ISBN 10: 1846684439
• ISBN 13: 9781846684432
• Reliure: Paperback
• Nombre de pages: 320