Total Loss: A Collection of 45 First-hand Accounts of Yacht Losses at Sea with a Summary of the Lessons to Be Learned - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0713658363 ISBN 13: 9780713658361

Synopsis

This is an enthralling collection of 50 dramatic stories of yachts lost at sea. First published in 1985, Jack Coote's book of first-hand accounts has been comprehensively updated and revised, with the addition of more than 20 new stories, including the loss of Pete Goss's 4m pound catamaran, Team Philips, in an Atlantic storm at the end of 2000. The authors include such well-known sailors as Isabelle Autissier, Mike Richey, Josh Hall and Peter Crowther, as well as the late Phil Weld, Frank Mulville, Peter Tangvald and H W Tilman. Their moving, emotionally charged descriptions of abandoning their yachts at sea will have you on the edge of your seat. But these are more than just gripping tales of disaster. They carry valuable lessons which the survivors have been able to pass on to all who go to sea for pleasure. Here are tales of collisions with UFOs (unidentified floating objects), fire and explosion, exhaustion and crew failure, capsize, faulty navigation, dismastings and severe storms. Every year, hundreds of yachts are lost at sea. For those who wish to avoid a similar fate, or learn how best to cope with emergencies, this book is essential, thought-provoking bunkside reading.

About this title

Review

'Holds the reader in morbid fascination' Yachting Monthly 'Required reading for anyone going offshore' Classic Boat

About the Author

Paul Gelder is Deputy Editor of Yachting Monthly magazine and has sailed thousands of miles in a variety of boats. His sailing assignments have taken him from above the Arctic Circle, to Tahiti and Bora Bora in the South Pacific, Mexico's Sea of Cortez, and much of the Caribbean and Mediterranean. He has written two books on round the world yacht races (The Loneliest Race and InterSpray's Race Around the World) as well as sailing 5,000 miles as crew on one race leg to Brazil. As editor of Yachting Monthly's Confessions and Sailing Skills sections, he is no stranger to misfortune afloat. His own boat, appropriately called Phoenix, is a 30ft trimaran which was rebuilt after being declared a 'total loss' by the insurers when she was blown ashore in a gale in Chichester Harbour.

Edition details

• Publication date: 1836
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0713658363
• ISBN 13: 9780713658361
• Binding: Paperback