The
Proving Ground : The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race
by G. Bruce Knecht
In The Proving Ground, journalist and lifelong sailor G. Bruce Knecht
tells the staggering story of the 54th Sydney to Hobart yacht race--an
annual event that is always an extreme test of courage and skill in some
of the world's most treacherous seas, but which in 1998 would become the
most disastrous race in modern yachting history. Although he was already
fifty feet from the boat, Brownie didn't have any trouble spotting Glyn.
He looked small, and utterly helpless.... Glyn was already having a hard
time keeping his head out of the water, and everyone quickly reached the
same unthinkable conclusion--Glynn was going to die and there was nothing
to do but watch.... Steve Kulmar was more shaken than anyone. When he first
came on deck, he believed Glyn was looking directly back at him. Of the
115 boats that started under clear skies in Sydney, just 43 would finish.
Six sailors lost their lives, and a further 55 were plucked from the storm
after the fleet had been decimated by unforecast hurricane winds and 80-foot-high
waves. Knecht's style is novelistic, though measured, with a strong journalistic
sensibility marshaling what must have been at times appallingly poignant
eyewitness testimony into a coherent account of the disaster. His intended
focus is beyond the headlines, and by concentrating on the experiences
of a handful of individual crews, The Proving Ground succeeds in conveying
the agonies of their desperate, sometimes futile struggles to survive--and
offers some insight into what drew them to the sea in the first place,
and why so many of the survivors have felt compelled to face it again.
--Alex
Hankin, Amazon.co.uk
Book Description: On December 26, 1998, 115 sailboats set out
on the annual race from Sydney to Hobart; only 43 would make it to the
Tasmanian city, and six sailors would be dead, the race having turned into
the worst modern sailing disaster since the 1979 Fastnet Race. Combining
the best elements of The Perfect Storm and Barbarians at the Gate, The
Proving Ground is a gripping narrative that follows the fates of three
yachts, including Sayonara, owned by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle
and the world's second richest man. From the chilling explanation of how
an Olympic sailor came to be catapulted from a yacht and why its crew could
do nothing to save him, to the dramatic journeys of two leaky life-rafts,
The Proving Ground is an exhilarating read.
Hardcover: 320 pages
Little Brown & Company; ISBN: 0316499552; 1st edition
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