Beyond Endurance 300 Boats, 600 Miles, and One Deadly Storm

When the three hundred yachts taking part in the 1979 Fastnet race started out, the wind was light and the seas were calm, and the crews, most of them seasoned sailors, were looking forward to the challenge of racing along the English Channel to the Fastnet lighthouse off the south coast of Ireland. But communications between the boats and shore were so poor in those days, the sailors had no way of knowing that a storm blowing eastward off the Atlantic was about to cross paths over their route with one coming from the north. When the combined storm hit, it was raging at Force 10, whipping the seas into mountainous waves that left more than two thousand sailors wrestling for control of their yachts - and struggling for their lives.

A journalist with the Toronto Star, Adam Mayers is a senior editor of the newspaper’s website. A sailing enthusiast, Mayers's first book on ocean racing was Sea of Dreams (2004). In 1979, he was living in Cornwall, U.K., when disaster struck the Fastnet race. Today, he and his family live in Oakville.


From the Hardcover edition.