Close to the Wind: An Extraordinary Story of Triumph Over Adversity

On 25 December, 1996, Pete Goss turned his 50-foot 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 nonstop, single-handed, round-the-world race. Instead, he was awarded France's highest honor, the Legion d'Honneur.Close to the Wind is Goss's story. He starts the book with his 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 before business meetings spent sleeping on platforms because there was no money to spare for a room, for instance. The drama of the Vendee is recounted in detail, down to Goss's having to operate on his elbow without anesthetic and with only the assistance of faxed instructions.Pete Goss became a national and international hero when he rescued French yachtsman Raphael Dinelli as his boat sank beneath him in the round-the-world single-handed sailing race, the Vendee Globe, on Christmas Day 1996. In doing so Pete scuppered his own chances in the race but was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by France's president and made a friend for life in Dinelli. Close to the Wind is his own story of the race and its dramas, his revolutionary boat, Aqua Quorum, his thoughts and emotions during four months of solitude at sea, the extraordinary surgery that he had to perform on his own elbow and the aftermath of the rescue in the Southern Ocean. This true story of triumph over adversity begins with Pete Goss's first transatlantic race at the age of 24 in a boat so old that the keel falls off after arriving in Newport. He next becomes a skipper in sailing competitions that teach him fundamental lessons about teamwork and character under extreme conditions, as he pursues his ultimate dream: the single-handed round-the-world race. To raise the money to build the boat for this grueling competition, Goss sells his car, his television set, and finally his house. The race itself confronts Goss with all the challenges of high-speed sailing, from combating waves the height of six-story buildings to the unremitting and exhilarating trial of his skills. A third of the way through the race everything goes wrong. His sails are destroyed, his navigation equipment proves useless. Then he receives a Mayday that a competitor is sinking 160 miles away, upwind. Now Goss has to find a man on a life raft in a merciless wilderness of ocean. How he does it, and still completes the race, is the stuff truly inspiring tales are made of. A sailor describes his love of the sea and sailing, his participation in a solo round-the-world race, the hardships and disasters that followed, and his battle to rescue a fellow competitor whose boat sank and still complete the race