A Voyage For Madmen

“An extraordinary story of bravery and insanity on the high seas. . . . One of the most gripping sea stories I have ever read.” — Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

In the tradition of Into Thin Air and The Perfect Storm, comes a breathtaking oceanic adventure about an obsessive desire to test the limits of human endurance.

In 1968 nine sailors set off on the most daring race ever held and never before completed: to single-handedly circumnavigate the globe nonstop. Ten months later, only one of the nine men would cross the finish line and earn fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the reward was madness, failure, and death.

Gorgeously written and meticulously researched by author Peter Nichols, this extraordinary book chronicles the contest of the individual against the sea, waged at a time before cell phones, satellite dishes, and electronic positioning systems. A Voyage for Madmen is a tale of sailors driven by their own dreams and demons, of horrific storms, and of those riveting moments when a decision means the difference between life and death.

On April 22, 1969 -- three months before Neil Armstrong's walk on the Moon -- the world watched as a small sailboat came ashore at Falmouth, England, completing a voyage of astonishing courage and endurance that would forever alter our ongoing adventure with the sea. Ten months earlier, nine very different men had set off in small and ill-equipped boats, determined to do the impossible: sail around the world alone and without stopping, to win the race dubbed the Golden Globe. Only one of the nine would cross the finish line -- to fame, wealth, and glory. For the others, the rewards would be despair, madness, and death.

The men were inspired by Sir Francis Chichester, who had become a national hero in Britain for stopping only once (in Australia) while sailing alone around the world. Suddenly what had seemed impossible-to circumnavigate the world alone and nonstop -- now appeared within reach. For nine driven men -- among them Robin Knox-Johnston, a young Merchant Marine captain; Bernard Moitessier, a French mystic; Donald Crowhurst, a brilliant, troubled electrical engineer; and Chay Blyth, an Army sergeant who had rowed across the Atlantic in 1966 but did not know how to saila gauntlet had been thrown down, a challenge they found themselves overwhelmingly and inexplicably compelled to accept.

Though the Golden Globe race was the progenitor of (and inspiration for) the Vendee Globe and the Race of the Millennium, its participants had more in common with Captain Cook and Ferdinand Magellan than with today's high-tech sailor. There was no satellite navigational system, no onboard computer, no cell phone or fax line connecting them to the world beyond -- or to possible rescuers. They survived on their wits and ingenuity, navigating by sextant, sun, and stars. Their most sophisticated technology -- when it worked -- was a radio.

A Voyage for Madmen is a remarkable story of individuals against the sea, of men driven by their dreams and demons to live for months on end in a cabin roughly the size of a Volkswagen. To succeed they must endure the harshest of weather; stave off unimaginable loneliness in the forbidding Southern Ocean; navigate unassisted through the world's most treacherous waters off the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn; and, time and again, face -- alone -- those fateful moments when a single decision could mean the difference between life and death.

With a novelist's eye for detail and a seaman's knowledge of the joys and perils of blue water, Peter Nichols has crafted a classic tale of endurance and adventure -- a fitting chronicle of how these obsessed sailors, "in their puny and inadequate boats, undertook the last great maritime feat...and how, one by one, the sea cut them down."

"A great book that combines the amazing stories of nine lone adventurers into a narrative so seamless that it made me want to drop everything to do what these men did: sail around the world alone. A Voyage For Madmen is a thoroughly exciting account of a historical event that changed how we perceive our world." - Daniel Hays, author of My Old Man and The Sea

"A wonderful, terrifying book about aspiration and fallibility, and how success and doom and madness are kept apart from each other by the slenderest of threads." - Richard Rayner, author of The Cloud Sketcher

"Peter Nichols has written a compulsively readable book that has everything a sea story should have. A Voyage For Madmen evokes the uniquely terrifying hazards and demands of the sea and, with a novelist's skill for character and detail, shows how nine single-handed sailors in their puny and inadequate boats undertook the last great maritime feat--the longest, loneliest sea voyage in history--and how, one by one, the sea cut them down. A marvelous book." - Derek Lundy, author of Godforsaken Sea

"[Nichols] is as convincing on seafaring, navigation and weather as Hemingway is on big game hunting and bullfighting." - Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

"[Peter Nichols'] account of the gripping round the world yacht race of 1968 ... could be another Perfect Storm. ... [It] tells of another age of human endeavor and lonely struggle against the sea." - The Bookseller, London

"Laced with suspense ... A well-detailed, fast-paced chronicle of the Sunday Times of London's 1968 Golden Globe Race, in which 9 men attempted to sail nonstop around the world alone." - Kirkus

“Reads like a suspense novel.” - Booklist

"A thrilling saga of courage and competition, a tribute to the fortitude of man." - Cape Codder

"An extraordinary saga...Crisp, unfanciful, evocative and constantly gripping, a story of men pushed up to and beyond their limits." - The Telegraph (London)

“An extraordinary story of bravery and insanity on the high seas....One of the most gripping sea stories I have ever read.” - Sebastian Junger, author of The Perfect Storm

“Spellbinding.” - Wall Street Journal

“A riveting account of the triumphant human spirit.” - Publishers Weekly

“A haunting story...[that] succeeds on the grandest scale.” - The Oregonian

“[A] genuinely extraordinary story...Nichols admirably splices nine narrative threads into an eminently readable whole, a story that practically turns its own pages.” - San Francisco Chronicle

"Conveys so vividly...the unmoored passage of time and space while sailors are alone at sea. Few writers are more suited to tell these men's story than Peter Nichols." - New York Times Book Review