Godforsaken Sea
Derek Lundy
This is the story of the 1996–97 Vendee Globe sailing race. This race was designed to test to the utmost the ability of individual sailors who feel they are ready to meet any challenge the oceans can offer. The race starts at Les Sables–d’Olonne in France, crosses the stormy Bay of Biscay, goes south to the vicinity of the Cape Verde Islands, then down near the Cape of Good Hope, around Antarctica, around Cape Horn, and back to the starting point. The total race distance is 27,000 nautical miles; nearly half of it is in the Southern Ocean, the area of the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and the Screaming Sixties. It is a sea of almost constant storms where twenty–five or thirty foot waves and fifty to sixty foot waves are not uncommon. (The highest wave ever recorded was 120 feet from trough to peak.)
There is one place in the Southern Ocean where the nearest land is 1600 miles away. The author notes that the only astronauts to be that far away from land are those who went to the moon.
The standard boats are sixty feet long and only one person is in each boat. Diesel engines are standard but may not be used for propulsion. They are essential for charging the batteries that keep the navigational and communication equipment running, and there is no stinting on that equipment. The sailors are in constant touch with each other, with race headquarters, and with families. Touching land for any reason disqualifies a boat. All boats receive weather maps by FAX but they are not allowed to have weather experts interpret the maps.
There were sixteen competitors—fourteen men and two women.
The narrative includes a rather extensive discussion of boat design and other technical aspects of the race. As might be expected, most of the book covers the adventures of the participants in the Southern Ocean—defined as the ocean south of the southern fortieth parallel. These adventures include climbing to the top of an 80–foot mast to make repairs (remember those twenty five foot waves), and a daring rescue of one of the participants by another of the racers who had to turn around and go back to make the rescue.
It is a very well–written book, but it does not make me want to go out and join the 2000–2001 Vendee Globe and I suspect that even Bill Wightman might prefer to stay at home.