Product Description

Pete Goss shares his adventures and philosophy - and the lessons learned - during the Vendee Globe race and the ten years of preparation for it. He tells of the dramas of the race, including his rescue of Frenchman Raphael Dinelli, along with his thoughts during his solitude at sea.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #195220 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
On 25 December 1996, Pete Goss turned his 50-ft yacht Aqua Quorum back into a hurricane-force headwind to rescue French sailor Raphael Dinelli. He risked his life and any chance of winning one of the world's great yachting challenges--the Vendee Globe non-stop, single- handed, round-the-world race. Instead, he was awarded France's highest honour--the Legion d'Honneur--and an MBE in the 1998 New Year's Honour List.

Close to the Wind is Goss's story. He starts with the years of preparation as a merchant seaman and skipper on one of the 10 yachts in Chay Blyth's British Steel Challenge. He describes how he attempted to get sponsorship but was constantly rebuffed and he discusses the hardships he faced--nights spent sleeping on platforms before business meetings because there was no money to spare for a room. The drama of the Vendee is recounted in detail, down to Goss's having to operate on his elbow without anaesthetic and with the assistance only of faxed instructions. And will he race again? He plans to set off on in a 115-ft catamaran in The Race, December 2000.

About the Author
Pete Goss is a professional yachtsman and a former member of the Royal Marines. After nine years in the Marines he left to embark on a full-time sailing career which led to success in the single-handed transatlantic race and the Vendée Globe, during which he rescued fellow-yachtsman Raphael Dinelli. He continues to sail all over the world and lives in Cornwall with his family.

Customer Reviews

Epic read !
I ploughed through this book like pete goss must have ploughed through the southern ocean... This is an informative, inspiring and generous book ..

Riveting, inspiring yarn well told and unnervingly casual.
Having seen Pete speak at my companies' annual conference early July of 1999, I was eager to hear more of his fantastic tale. The book is clearly written with a laid back delivery of the high-level of drama it contains - much like the man himself.

Indeed, the book left me with much the same feeling as his presentation - wanting more and rather surprised that it had finished so soon. You feel, through Pete's very lucid writing, that you are reminiscing with a close friend over the last few years of their lives.

Pete describes life aboard a 50 foot yacht in vivid and 'non-seaman accessible' detail, yet much of the book is the story of the run up to the race and it is all the better for it.

As Pete says time and again, the race was not single-handed after all - it belonged to the incredible yet very normal group of people that got Pete and Aqua Quorum to the start line and eventually home again.

'Close to the Wind' is a book for anyone with an interest in the sea, adventure, teamwork or the story of an everyday chap that achieved his life-long dream - oh yes, and saved a fellow yachtman's life amid 60' waves and a huge storm in the most inhospitable ocean in the world... sorry nearly forgot to mention it...

Pete's incredible experiences have given him a simple but extremely insightful philosophy. The book is littered with excellent snippets of wisdom and it is these that will live on with you after you have put the book down... which I guarentee will be not that long after you pick it up....

Make that three and half stars!
Welcome to my first review of one of the very first books I've bought through Amazon.

I decided to read this book on the undersatnding that it was a true account of much adventure on the high seas by a man alone. I was wrong but never dissappointed. I should have paid more attention to other reviews. This is about a huge team effort and all the preparations that go into a single handed non-stop circumnavigation when you don't have any money to do so!

The account is very believable, easy to read and maybe a little short of good written visualisation (if you've read 'Perfect Storm' you'll know what I mean). However, Pete Goss comes over as a very likeable man and you will him along as you read.

The story of the actual race is quite short but nicely told. Missing is an understanding why he does these thing alone and I'd like him to reveal more of himself to the reader.

I don't want to appear too critcal - I neither write well or sail! Go and buy the book - it is inspiring.