"IT IS THE MERCY."

Good book.

Beautifully written account of a historic round the world solo, non-stop, sailing race. This is an exhilarating story of adventure and the human spirit. I did not want this book to end.

Die "Vendée Globe" gilt als die härteste Segelregatta der Welt. Dabei können sich die Sportler heutzutage auf GPS, Hightech-Yachten und gute Kommunikation verlassen.

Davon konnten die Teilnehmer des "Sunday Times Golden Globe Race", der ersten Nonstop Einhand-Weltumsegelungsregatta im Jahr 1968, nur träumen.

In "A Voyage for Madmen" rekonstruiert Peter Nichols die Geschichte von neun Männern, die auszogen das letzte große Abenteuer der Erde zu erleben.

Doch zehn Monate später sollte nur einer von Ihnen die Ziellinie erreichen. Während ihn Reichtum, Ruhm und Ehre erwartete, blieb für die anderen nur die Niederlage, Wahnsinn und Tod.

Einmal um die Welt segeln. Klingt für den Laien nach einem schönen Rentnertraum. Aber ganz so einfach ist es wohl nicht.
Denn wenn man nicht durch den Panamakanal segelt, sondern vorbei an den drei Kaps (Kap der Guten Hoffnung, Kap Leeuwin, Kap Hoorn) erwarten einen am 40. Breitengrad die Roaring Forties.
Winde, die aus westlicher Richtung kommen und häufig zu heftiger Sturmstärke auflaufen. Sie Sorgen für hohen Seegang und Regen und verlangen Einhand-Seglern und Booten alles ab.

Neben der körperlichen Fitness benötigt der Weltumsegler aber vor allem mentale Stärke.
1968 musste sich die Teilnehmer auf ein knappes Jahr "Einzelhaft" auf ihren Booten einstellen, häufig ohne jeglichen Kontakt zur Außenwelt. Diese Einsamkeit muss man erstmal aushalten können.
Hinzu kommen Schlafentzug, schlechtes Essen und technisches Versagen. Die besten Zutaten für Wahnsinn!

Klar, dass sich nur eine Handvoll Draufgänger dazu hinreißen ließen.

Den Mut zur Herausforderung brachten alle mit aber ansonsten hätten die Teilnehmer nicht unterschiedlicher sein können. Vom philosophischen Segelexperten Bernard Moitessier bis hin zu Chai Blyth, der vor dem Rennen noch nie wirklich gesegelt war.
Auch bei den Yachten war vom Einrumpf-Holzboot bis zum Trimaran alles dabei.

Nach einer detaillierten Vorstellung der Teilnehmer rekonstruiert Autor Peter Nichols, der selbst auch Segler ist, anhand von Zeitungsartikeln, Literatur und Logbüchern den Verlauf des Rennens.

Welches Schicksal, wen ereilte soll hier nicht verraten werden. Aber wer zuvor noch nie etwas von dem Rennen gehört hat, wird die ein oder andere spektakuläre Überraschung erleben.

Nichols Schreibe ist solide wenn auch nicht übermäßig leidenschaftlich. Deshalb hätte ich gerne mehr Originalauszüge aus den Logbüchern gelesen.
Zudem war es anfangs aufgrund der vielen Protagonisten nicht so leicht den Überblick zu behalten aber im Laufe des Rennens lichtet sich praktischer weise das Teilnehmerfeld.

Fazit - Leinen los für ein Leseabenteuer!
Das Sunday Times Golden Globe Race von 1968 bot reichlich Stoff für fesselnden Seemansgarn.
Und obgleich es um neun Einzelschicksale geht, gelingt es Nichols diese zu einer runden Geschichte zu verarbeiten. Vom Haifisch bis zur Monsterwelle bietet "A voyage for Madmen" alles, was das Leichtwassermatrosenherz begehrt. Alle Mann an Bord, es geht rund!

Alle awesomatik Rezensionen auf einen Blick
http://awesomatik.com/buchfuhlung/

awesomatik Kuriosum
Wer selbst mal um die Welt segeln möchte, der kann sich hier ein paar Tipps holen:
http://www.yacht.de/schenk/n004/circu...

Was einem so alles auf hoher See passieren kann, sieht man spektakulär in folgenden Filmen:
All is lost von J. C. Chandor
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sc6X8J...]
En Solitaire von Christophe Offenstein
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoIBkF...]

A slow start, but a fast finish! Fascinating true story about 9 men who set out to sail around the world - by themselves. Strengthened my conviction that I'm not living on a sailboat!

This was the first 10-star book of 2017. What would make anyone want to sail around the world single-handed and without stopping? In 1968 The Sunday Times put up a prize of £5,000 and the Golden Globe trophy to the first person to make it back.

Nine men took up the challenge. One of them, Chay Blythe, couldn't even sail, but had rowed across the Atlantic. Only one of them, as it turned out, was up to the challenge, and he didn't want the prize.

So what happened to the nine men? Four dropped out before leaving the Atlantic. Chay Blythe got to the Cape of Good Hope before retiring. One, Crowhurst committed suicide having faked his log of pretending to sail and was obviously mentally ill. Another, Nigel Tetley, in sight of the prize almost, sank. That left two men. The man in the lead, Bernard Moitessier decided it was all too commercial and not good for his spiritual self and so turned around and headed to Tahiti, another 10,000 miles. That left Robin Knox-Johnson, the only finisher who won both the Golden Globe and the money which he donated to Crowhurst's family.

Despite the awful results of the race, it morphed into the Vendée Globe which takes place every four years. This last one, 2016/17 saw 29 entrants of which 18 finished.

The most interesting characters in the book were Donald Crowhurst and his madness. He was frightened of both the sailing and financial ruin and so faked his log which showed his gradual descent into madness and thence to suicide. The other was Bernard Moitessier who was a successful author and sailor but felt he had sold out and that taking the cash prize would be bad for his soul. Quite what his wife (also a sailor) and his children thought of him not coming home but heading of to Tahiti isn't recorded.

Naturally, the next book I read was The Long Way by Moitessier. I had to know his views on all of this.

A fascinating and haunting book. I don’t know anything about yacht racing but this book I could not put down. Surprised it hasn’t been made into a movie.

What a perfect title! Despite knowing nothing about sailing this book took me on a journeys around the world which I would never make (even with today's technology). It also takes the reader on personal journeys, exploring why decisions are made and touching on the impact those decisions have on not just the individual making the decision but on others in their lives. For me it confirmed that, to succeed at this level and particularly in sport, you have to be not only incredibly driven but also selfish.
A glimpse into a fascinating time in history.

Finished and it was one heck of a ride... I have loved to ocean and always wanted to sail but this book has confirmed for me how harsh and unforgiving it can be. Physically, mentally, emotionally. The open ocean can break men or strengthen them.
I loved the book but upon finishing it I feel depressed after having read some of the outcomes.

Great story about how a large sum of money can drive nine men (a few of them entirely unprepared) to circumnavigate the globe nonstop by themselves. You really felt for some of the characters and I definitely had my favorites and ones I hoped dropped out. Really cool how a lot of the sources are books written by the sailors who participated. I feel like it helps to really show their states of mind during the race.

Cannot recommend this book enough. You really couldn't make this stuff up. Characters straight out of a Wes Anderson tale.

More than a story about one of the most challenging events ever held, it's an incredible study of the characters, psychology and motivations of these 9, very different, personalities. A tour through both the marvel, incredible method and madness of the 9 participants all taking part in an inconcievable race for glory, fame and survival. The end results will baffle all.

Peter's writing style is well balanced and a pleasure to follow. Highly recommended.

The first non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race, was "Like the first ascent of Everest, [...] a feat without any larger purpose than its own end. But like a trip to the moon, it was a voyage that provided man with another benchmark of the far reach of his yearning endeavor".
The race was nothing like today's well-funded, meticulously organized Vendee Globe or BOC Challenge. For a start, the rules were written as many of the competitor were already planning on undertaking the project. The organization of the race by the Sunday Times transformed what some saw as a spiritual quest into a commercial venture. But that doesn't mean it was a well-organized one: one of the competitors had never sailed before. Another, prepped his boat for long after the starting deadline. Anchored outside of a port in England, he was technically departed. The inefficacy of radio systems in those days meant communication with the competitors was scant: positions would be many times discovered only when the boats closed with the shore.
Certainly, the most amazing aspect of the book is the attention given to the competitors, and their lives and thoughts as they undertook what Knox-Johnston, the eventual winner, described as "solitary confinement with the hardest of labor". Why did they do it? Of course, each will have his own reason: for Knox-Johnston, it was for England. For Moitessier, deliverance from past sins. For Crowhurst, the ultimate chance to succeed in life. But they all have a bit of what Nichols smartly describes as the Ulysses Factor; they all felt the "urge to be off, to test himself to the brink of tolerance". For them, "the where and how is simply the means to burrow as deeply as possible into oneself. It's the answer to the relentless question that flood the mind when the exercise becomes painful and severe: "What am I doing here? What's the point?"". And indeed, by putting themselves in such extreme conditions, these men learn much about themselves. Nichols is able to retell some of that self-discovery, and particularly the maelstrom of emotions these men underwent.
The one critique I had for the book is that it could've been longer. Some of the aspects of the race are extremely well explored, like Crowhurst's demise. But others are barely touched. The clearest of all is Moitessier's shocking decision to abandon the race as he was taking the lead and to continue to sail alone around the globe. By far the most amazing decision in the race, the one I can't imagine someone taking. A highly competitive man, abandoning a formal competition after so long and so close to the finish line, in order to save his souls by continuing to sail alone. I wish more pages had been dedicated to what went on in his mind, how that decision related to his past and how he lived with it later in his life. Another problem with the book is that it delves into a lot of technical sailing descriptions, rich with jargon, but doesn't contain an appendix to the non-sailors.
In any case, a worthwhile read for anyone interested in heroic acts, and the men who pursue them.

This brilliantly written book tells the story of nine men having an around-the-world race in small, self-built yachts in the late 1960s: the Golden Globe race. Besides being a series of narrative chapters describing specifics of each man's voyage, the book offers an education in nautical terms, conditions, and dangers. It made me finally understand the last paragraph of The Great Gatsby: "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." It turns out that beating is sailing into the wind. I only had an approximate idea of Fitzgerald's meaning until I learned that term from this book.

The book is dense with individual narratives, but I had to put it down and turn to other books a couple times because each chapter takes up with one of the sailors, which makes for episodic reading and a lack of continuity. This, of course, is n0 fault of the author, because the book is really nine distinct episodes with no dialogue because there was no one else on each boat.

The experience of this race ends differently for each boat. One sailor decides to forgo the Golden Globe prize for the winner of the circumnavigation, and he just keeps sailing again around the world. One boat is battered by the ocean and sinks, and the sailor is rescued from his life raft; one sailor lies about his positions on the ocean and has a psychotic break, writing an enormous number of pages about his voyage in his log book in a frenzied spell of graphomania before leaping out of the boat to his death. The stories are unusually different for nine men doing essentially the same thing.

In the end, the stories are fascinating. Each man's voyage is a unique struggle against the power of the oceans. I learned more about sailing than I ever thought I could.