Absolutely fantastic book! Nine men ... six English, two French, and one Italian ... endeavour to single-handedly sail nonstop 'round the world. Only one man returns. If you want to know what happened, you'll have to read the book! I highly recommend it.

"They were neither sportsmen nor yachtsmen. Only one of the nine crossed the finishing line after ten months at sea. The rest encountered despair, sublimity, madness and death".



4 Stars = It gave me much to think about. If definitely held my interest.

One of my hobbies is reading true life stories about real sailors on real life sailing adventures. I sail myself - we have a 34' sailboat that we basically move aboard in the summer - but I'm the first to admit that I'm a 'fair weather sailor.' So, this whole thing is vicarious. Even if you're not a sailor, I think you' enjoy Voyage for Madmen. Very readable. Very scary. Very well-written.

Epic story about insane courage. Difficult story to tell given the large cast of characters and technical subject matter (sailing). Thought the author did a good job - putting together a nice holiday read. Makes me appreciate being on dry land - not battling the Southern Ocean!

Książki o żeglarstwie nie cieszą się u nas zbyt wielką popularnością, można nawet pokusić się o stwierdzenie, że polski czytelnik - jeśli chodzi o reportaże - stoi plecami do morza, patrząc na południe, w stronę gór. Taki stan rzeczy sprawia, że nie jest dziś łatwo znaleźć "książkę okno" na żeglarski świat, która sprawi, że potencjalny czytelnik zainteresuje się tematem, dlatego bardzo się ucieszyłem, gdy w moje ręce wpadł "Wyścig szaleńców" autorstwa Petera Nicholsa. Liczyłem na kawał dobrej żeglarskiej literatury faktu i nie zawiodłem się.

Wydany po raz pierwszy w 2001 roku "Wyścig szaleńców" uchodzi za klasyk literatury żeglarskiej i chociaż ze strony redakcyjnej wyczytałem, że wydanie, które trzymam teraz w dłoniach jest pierwszym w Polsce, to znalazłem również informację, że "Wyścig" był u nas wydany wcześniej, bo w 2011 roku przez wydawnictwo Mayfly, w każdym razie "moje" wydanie AD 2020 prezentuje się ciałkiem nieźle: książka jest oprawiona w miękką okładkę ze skrzydełkami, w środku znajduje się wkładka ze świetnymi, czarno białymi zdjęciami dokumentującymi zmagania śmiałków, do tego każdy rozdział opatrzony jest bardzo przydatną grafiką obrazującą kulę ziemską z zaznaczonym przebiegiem trasy i aktualną pozycją żeglarzy, co bardzo pomaga w wyobrażeniu sobie czego właściwie ci szaleńcy się podjęli. Niebagatelną rolę w odbiorze książki odgrywa też wiedza samego Nicholsa, jest on bowiem z zawodu kapitanem i sam niejedno na morzach i ocenach przeżył.

Wróćmy jednak do treści. Nichols odwalił kawał dobrej roboty zbierając materiały tak o samych regatach, jak i o żeglarzach biorących w nich udział (każdy zasłużył na osobną biografię i chyba wszyscy się doczekali) i udało mu się skondensować tę masę informacji do jasnej, czytelnej i co najważniejsze niezwykle wciągającej i trzymającej w napięciu, aż do ostatniej strony opowieści. Nie jest to bowiem historia tylko o próbie jak najszybszego opłynięcia w pojedynkę naszego globu, a bardziej opowieść o ludziach: niezwykle odważnych i uroczo staromodnych - rozgrzewających się brandy, gdy opływają przylądek Horn, ale też, co autor niejednokrotnie podkreśla, nieprzystosowanych do normalnego życia, o ludziach obdarzonych żelazną wolą i o pokusie zwycięstwa, której części z nich nie wyszła na dobre.

Niech was jednak nie zwiedzie powyższy akapit. Czystego żeglarstwa - tego całego halsowania pod wiatr, samosterów, grotmasztów i wszelkiej maści techniki szkutniczej, jest w książce Nicholsa tyle, co wody w oceanie południowym, i mnie, jako kompletnemu żeglarskiemu laikowi, zabrakło choćby skromnego słowniczka pojęć, lub też grafiki z objaśnioną budową jachtu i w zasadzie jest to jedyna, nawet nie łyżka, ale niewielka łyżeczka słonej wody w beczce wody słodkiej, wszak dziś wszystkiego da się dowiedzieć za pomocą jednego kliknięcia, a oni na tych swoich łupinach często nie mieli nawet sprawnego radia, cóż rok 1968 ... kiedy na świecie zostało jeszcze trochę rzeczy do zrobienia po raz pierwszy, za to nie było GPS - u, a gazety czytało się z wypiekami na twarzy.

Podsumowując, czy polecam "Wyścig szaleńców"? Jednym mocnym słowem: Tak. Komu polecam: każdemu, kogo interesują ekstremalne przeżycia i pokręcone losy niezwykłych ludzi.
Dostałem to, czego oczekiwałem: "książkę okno", a teraz idę poszukać czegoś o Bernardzie Moitessierze i Robinie Knox-Johnstonie ...


Za możliwość przeczytania "Wyścigu szaleńców" dziękuję Klubowi recenzenta portalu nakanapie.pl

An amazing adventure book based on true life events in 1968. I fell in love with the narrative and the parallel stories of the race despite a slow start.

Just read it and don't do any research to spoil the ending.

4.5 stars

This book and I got off to a rocky start. I couldn't really fathom why I was supposed to care about these largely faceless, privileged white dudes in the 60s, who decide to abandon their wives, their families and friends, to sail around the world alone for the best part of a year. One guy literally makes his wife homeless, as they lived on his boat together. And I have zero interest in sailing, which didn't help.

But, one sure way to keep me curious is to pose a mystery that I want to solve. It's clear from the outset that only one of the nine competitors makes it back, and death was a consequence for some. So once I pushed past the 75 page mark, I found myself weirdly invested.

I still don't have much respect for the competitors - it's amazing how the author glossed over the sheer number of broken marriages, failed relationships, abandoned children. Only one competitor won me over, but I would have loved a bit more depth to their stories. There is a clear love of sailing permeating the work, so for a layman like me, the human interest angle is what propelled me forward, and I wanted to understand these men better than I felt I ultimately did.

But the ending! I can't stop thinking about the ending. I have been googling the competition ever since, learning more about their lives, and how the 2018 race is stacking up. So that's quite a turnaround from how I felt at the start of the book.

I'm glad I read this, and I'm looking forward to discussing at the next book club.

"They were neither sportsmen nor yachtsmen. Only one of the nine crossed the finishing line after ten months at sea. The rest encountered despair, sublimity, madness and death".

The 1968 round the world yacht race was born from a number of individual plans to conduct a non-stop single-handed circumnavigation of the world. The Sunday Times wanted to be involved but was unsure who to sponsor as they did not want to be involved with a sailor who did not win and two of the most likely to succeed already had deals...answer sponsor a race: two prizes one for the first passed the post circumnavigation and the other the fastest. Few rules and certainly no minimum qualifications or standards led to a mix of men putting their names forward. The Sunday Times Golden Globe Race non-stop, single-handed, round-the-world yacht race was born.

What followed was a fascinating and rather "old-fashioned" European approach to doing something because it is there to be done. The men who stepped forward were a real mix of personalities, experiences, and backgrounds: six Englishmen, two Frenchmen and one Italian.

Old-fashioned because this is the age prior to corporate sponsorship, media managers, dietary expertise and of course modern communications such as GPS, mobile/satellite phones and carbon fibre boats. The men all adopted differing approaches and plans with boats being adapted, some build from new and trying (even trialling) new designs and techniques.

The race was not a large gathering of boats crossing a start line but the rules allowed departure from any UK port between 1st June and 31st October 1968, and as such the men and their preparations saw leave through that period.

From there they all sailed, tacked, drifted, languished, swirled and speeded towards the prizes - some for money, some for the fame and some, well because there's not much "left to do".

The stories of the men and their preparations and of course their journeys are riveting and frankly astonishing: both in the challenge mentally and physically and the land-loving reader like me who would have neither courage nor will-power to confront months and months of loneliness in some of the most fierce and dangerous seas on the planet (named the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties after the latitudes between 40 and 50 and 60 degrees south of the equator - https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/r... ); waves of 40 feet and more and gale force winds.

The dangerous seas and extreme weather along with exhaustion and mental strain takes their toll with just one man finishing. There is also much introspection by competitors and even some cheating that causes pain for some long-after the race is over.

Overall this was a real insight for me as I've read nothing about yacht sailing or the high seas in this context. I am now interested in these men, their craft (for that is what it is - especially in the late 1960s as the techniques are more recognisable to Captain Cook than modern yacht racers) and also the famed Tea Clippers who rode these seas in the mid-19th century.

Oh, and why did I choose this book as it's not one I'd normal pick up? Well, that's down to the UK's wonderful national chain of bookshops: Waterstones. It was one of their books of the month in a store in Sussex. The staff in Waterstones write their own brief reviews and pin them on the shelf to help readers choose.

Riveting. A window onto another world. A bunch of people with great contrasts of experience and character, doing something extraordinary in what is nearly, though not quite, the modern world. The author did a great job keeping a balance with the thrills and spills and the repeating monotony of life at sea on your own.

Second time reading (immediately after reading Bernard Mortessier's account in The Long Way) and I can't believe what I wrote before! Once afloat their world was nothing like the modern world - using sextant and seamanship - it was nearer the world of a hundred years before. Unable to contact the outside world for periods sometimes up to 4 months (although sometimes managing to pick up radio broadcasts). Journeys that were extreme sea voyages but also mind voyages. I've ordered Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World from the library as he was probably the first to do it - in 1895. Can't wait.

And the author of this book has written splendidly - have another star.

*BC, 0-499, 500-999, 1000, 1100, 1200, 1300, 1400, 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800-1849, 1850-1899, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, The Future

An engrossing dissection of the race to be the first single-handed sailor to circumnavigate the world (via the Southern Ocean) without stopping. Like Godforsaken Sea, the story focuses more on the competitors than on the particulars of their races, barring some major storms or challenges along the way. Nichols paints a nuanced picture of each of the nine men involved, along with their motivations and personalities. It is amazing how well he brings to life the by-definition solitary experiences of each of these sailors.

Nichols also throws well-earned shade at the people encouraging sailors who were utterly underprepared and underequipped for a life-threatening voyage. The unraveling mental states of most of the competitors showed that the sea was only half the danger faced, and the Golden Globe race deserves to continue to live on in ignominy.

Brilliant. Tremendously well researched and excitingly written. I’ve read some of the stories of some of the people in this book, but bringing them together to tell the story of the first ever Golden Globe Race is brilliant.

“One may be afraid, but action is a blessing that usually allays the deepest fears and doubts, and once a few storms are weathered, one acquires a comforting faith in one’s efforts.”

An insane race around the world in small sailing yachts, alone. Through storms, 40-80ft waves, frigid temperatures, months without any human communication, and much more. Out of the 9 who set off, only one completed the journey and out of those who survived, 2 committed suicide. One within weeks of finishing. That’s how intense the physical and mental aspects of the race were.

One of the last great adventures to be had on the planet, it was a voyage for madmen indeed. It’s very well told and a quick read. The conditions were near indescribable and everyone almost died at least once, barely surviving by the narrowest margin. After reading this, I now need to go buy a sailboat.

As every sailor had kept a thorough log of the journey, there’s a lot of insight into the circumstances and mental state of the racers. The final words written by one before taking his own life from the immense mental pressure, “It is the mercy”.

I must go down to the sea again