Godforsaken Sea: The True Story of a Race Through the World's Most Dangerous Waters

Around the world by way of Antarctica, one boat, one sailor, no help, no stopping: these are the cruelly simple rules binding the men and women who undertake the world's most dangerous and demanding sailing race, the Vendee Globe. Godforsaken Sea is the story of the 1996-1997 Vendee Globe, a grueling four-month circumnavigation of the world via the Southern Ocean, where icebergs and hurricane-force winds are a constant threat, and the waves build to monstrous, almost unimaginable heights.

Through the eyes of the fourteen men and two women who embark on the race, Lundy captures both the savagery of the elements and the courage of the sailors who push themselves to the outer limits of human endeavor, even if it means never returning home. A graceful evocation of the sailing life, an eloquent meditation on danger, and an appreciation of those danger-seekers who embody the most heroic and eccentric aspects of the human condition, Godforsaken Sea is a modern classic of adventure writing, as gripping as it is insightful.