BOOKS. Sailing Legends – The story of the world’s greatest ocean race
If you are looking for a comprehensive guide to how the Volvo Ocean Race evolved, you have to read Sailing Legends – The story of the world’s greatest ocean race.
The Whitbread Round the World Race – now the Volvo Ocean Race – spans 40 years, ten races, and more than 300,000 miles across the most inhospitable seas. From gentlemanly competition in yachts designed more for graceful living than screaming around Cape Horn, the race has progressed to purpose-built craft with few creature comforts, crewed by fanatical, professionals.
No one takes the race lightly and no one tells the story better than journalists, Bob Fisher and Barry Pickthall who have been there for every race from the first in 1973 until 2009 edition.
They mark the anecdotes, highlight all the major stories, and provide biographies of sailing’s greatest names from the first handicap and line honour winners, Ramon Carlin and Sir Chay Blyth, to double winner Conny van Rietschoten, French legend Eric Tabarly, those great New Zealand rivals Sir Peter Blake and Grant Dalton, through to the latter-day Volvo race winners.
They also detail the awesome advances in design and construction that make today’s yachts formidably tough, surfing greyhounds capable of hitting 40knots + and sustaining 600 mile daily runs. The book also lists every crew member to have taken part.
