The titular Godforsaken Sea is the Southern Ocean, whose challenges Lundy describes through the story of the 1996 Vendée Globe race: a single-handed non-stop sailboat race around the world. Several competitors came to grief in the Southern Ocean that year, including one who vanished without a trace.
Lundy does an excellent job of detailing the numerous factors that contribute to a successful endurance race: boat designs, solicitation of sponsors, training, tactics, food and sleep planning, communication channels, emergency procedures, heavy weather strategy, psychological equanimity.
The inherent drama of a dangerous race should provide a propulsive narrative structure, but Lundy consistently manages to undermine the excitement by reporting on events out of order, stepping away to include interview material about before and after the race, and repeating paeans to heroism in the face of the awesome Southern Ocean.
The rescues at sea were sensational enough to resist Lundy's talent for sapping energy from the story. The friendship that developed between Pete Goss and Raphaël Dinelli is the happy ending.
Lundy does an excellent job of detailing the numerous factors that contribute to a successful endurance race: boat designs, solicitation of sponsors, training, tactics, food and sleep planning, communication channels, emergency procedures, heavy weather strategy, psychological equanimity.
The inherent drama of a dangerous race should provide a propulsive narrative structure, but Lundy consistently manages to undermine the excitement by reporting on events out of order, stepping away to include interview material about before and after the race, and repeating paeans to heroism in the face of the awesome Southern Ocean.
The rescues at sea were sensational enough to resist Lundy's talent for sapping energy from the story. The friendship that developed between Pete Goss and Raphaël Dinelli is the happy ending.
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