The Proving Ground: The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race by G Bruce Knecht

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Pages are sunned.

The worst disaster in recent ocean racing history began on Boxing Day 1998, a perfect summer day on Sydney Harbour.

Among the starters was Sayonara, owned by Larry Ellison, the world's second richest man and a restless soul with an almost pathological need to win. Ellison's crew included Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert's heir apparent, a young man with an unquenchable taste for danger.

On the Sword of Orion a pharmacist-turned-entrepreneur hoped to fulfill a childhood dream and complete a leap from sailing novice to Grand Prix yachtsman.

One of the last to cross the starting line was Richard Winning, the old-guard owner of the Winston Churchill, a classic wooden yacht that had competed in the very first Sydney to Hobart Race 53 years earlier.

Soon, these and 112 other competitors would be battered by hurricane-force winds and 25-metre waves. What made these sailors risk all in some of the world's most treacherous waters? How did the crews of the stricken boats survive injury and terror in darkness and mountainous seas?

Bruce Knecht's exhaustive interviews with Ellison and Murdoch, as well as all the survivors from the Sword and the Churchill have enabled him to recreate the drama like no other account of the race, and he reveals new and disturbing details about the events which led to the death of several sailors.

A page-turner of the highest order, The Proving Ground is more than one of the most compelling adventure stories written in years. It is also an incisive look at the forces that continue to draw men who have triumphed on land to risk everything at sea. (back cover)