Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful yarn
Review: This is a wonderful book.Salors will treeasure it, but so will any reader looking for a spellbinding read. The book shows us men and women engaged in an incredible enterprise: a 'round the world race with only two rules - you sail alone, and if you touch land, you're disqualified. A book like this could easily become a boring list of statistics and nautical facts that nobody wants to know. Instead, Lundy has produced a gripping tale about the men and women engaged in this extraordinary race, and their dazzling seamanship, courage, endurance, determination and gallantry. You'd have to be dead and buried, not to enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: The toughest test of skill and courage...
Review: You have to admire the sailors that Lundy profiles in this marvelous adventure story of racing the globe solo. The Southern Ocean is so treacherous the very thought of it makes ordinary sailors never want to board their boats again. In all, a much better read than "A Perfect Storm." Around the world alone racing makes the professional sword fishing risks that Sebastian Unger wrote about look like a mere ride on Space Mountain at Disney World. Truly a harrowing account. The amazing thing is that this sort of thing is growing in popularity. Man (and woman) And the Challenge brought to life.
Rating: 
Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: Despite an interesting topic and well-researched storyline, Mr. Lundy's presentation left a lot to be desired. Was this a postmodern attempt to present a non-linear chronology? I can't say. But his writing is not strong. And the structure he chose to frame the tale did little to give me, as reader, anything to invest in. Knockdown is much better!!!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent. A quick read for any sailor.
Review: A well written book which addresses all of the different aspects of these professional sailors and this unique race, from the technical aspects of the boats they sail to the emotions which drive them.
Rating:
Summary: Repetition
Review: An interesting book. However it should have been shortened by at least one half. Lundy simply begins repeating and repeating the observation that sailing the Southern Ocean is dangerous, high winds, big waves. I found myself simply glancing at the pages after the halfway point as Lundy continued to repeat this message. OK. The winds are high, the seas are high, you are alone and far from land. Geez, that's not too hard to understand.
Rating:
Summary: WONDERFUL READ FOR ARM CHAIR SAILERS
Review: Wow! I just read through some of the other reviews of this book - what a diversity of opinion. I am currently on page 185 of this book and have found it to be a wonderful read. I am not a sailer - but would like to be. Perhaps this is why I find the moderate technical detail (written for a "landlubber" no doubt) and the brief bios of the racers so interesting. I do agree with some of the others that the book tends to be disjointed and jumps around chonologically - however, I would guess that most of the people who begin reading this book know the outcome of the race and what happened - so it is safe to assume that the author expected that the readers would not be sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for the outcome but rather be looking for more information - he does this very well. Anyway, I bought the book to read about extreme sailing and the aspect of sailing alone in the Southern Ocean. I did not buy it to experience literary excellence. If you want a literary experience read The Old Man and the Sea by Hemmingway or Moby Dick. If you simply want to meet the sailers of this extraordinary race and get as close to an eyewitness account as the 250 pages would allow - buy and read this book. I love it!!! For more detail I plan to read Goss' book (also panned by literary types). One final thought - I have read the first 15 books in Pat O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin series. I found this book to be equally entertaining.
Rating: 
Summary: Life and Death on the Southern Ocean
Review: "Below forty degrees south there is no law; below fifty degrees south there is no God." This quote begins the tenth chapter of Derek Lundy's Godforsaken Sea. With heart-racing action right from the start, Mr. Lundy explores various issues related to what seems like a foolish act: racing a sailboat solo, without stopping, through the vicious conditions of the Southern Ocean. Yet it is the stark and simple rules of the Vendee Globe race, the subject of this book, that make it so compelling: sail around the world without help and without assistance. The course of the race is equally simple: Atlantic Ocean - Southern Ocean - Atlantic Ocean. In an age where "extreme" sports are becoming commonplace, Lundy makes a compelling case for calling this sporting event the most extreme sport of all. In fact, dealing with the moral implications of people subjecting themselves to such a dangerous event is one of the challenges the reader of this book will face. Yet the sailors of the Vendee Globe, as presented in the Godforsaken Sea, are real, genuine human beings. They are people who, while in the near hurricane force conditions, cannot wait to get home, yet, when they do arrive back in France, cannot wait to get back to the sea. The reader is left with the clear idea that the Vendee Globe is an event where a competitor has a fairly good chance of not coming back alive.
Rating:
Summary: The best book on extreme sailing
Review: Ahoy! I've actually raced in the BOC and the Around Alone, and I can tell ya that this is a fabulous book. There isn't a bloody book out there that even comes close to getting it right; Lundy understands what it's like, even if he hasn't raced it himself. I'd have him on board any day. I get sick to hell of people making out like we're crazy to be racing like this, that it's all one crazy disaster after another. This book is the only one that makes us look like humans, rather than cartoons. See you on the waves!
Rating:
Summary: The "glass" was half full.
Review: I have read several books about the Vendee Globe, and the BOC, and in most cases have been riveted by the ferocity of the sea, and the the hardships these sailors faced. But this book was disjointed, and disorganized. Several times the author begins to take you into the fearsome southern sea only to digress into the technicalities of yacht construction...back to the sailors risking their lives...the history of the round-the-worlds...back to the sailors, etc. But near the start of the book he reaveals the dire straits some of the competitors are facing, and then shortly after places people thousands of miles away from their perils. Near the beginning of the race. Start the book at least half way through, and still be prepared to skim read. I'll give this book away.
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Summary: Godforsaken writing
Review: Like a ship without a rudder, Godforsaken Sea drifts aimlessly with no hope of saving itself. This would have been better suited as a magazine article. With a good author this would have been a good book, but alas, we are stuck with the rather meandering writing of Derek Lundy. This book just never gets going in any kind of direction. Lundy insists on jumping from third to first person throughout the book. This would be frustrating under the best of circumstances but it simply ruins this book because Lundy has absolutely nothing that he needs to tell us about himself. He has never done this kind of racing and he has no intentions of doing this kind of racing. Unfortunately he doesn't have a problem opining on a subject of which he is largely ignorant His thoughts are irrelevant to this story. Had Lundy had some sort of involvement with the race his opinions might have some value. Lundy also has no sense of time. He repeats himself over and over ad nauseum. He tells the story of racer of Gerry Roufs three different times. First Roufs is in the race and then he is lost at sea. About a hundred pages later Roufs is mysteriously in the race again and then he's gone again. Just to be sure we haven't forgotten about Roufs we have the story rehashed one more time at the end of the book. There is almost nothing in this book that doesn't get repeated at least once. This is a dreadful read about a race that could have been a real page turner. Everytime the book begins to get gripping Lundy manages to kill the mood. Apparently the editor didn't spend much time reading this.
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