The greatest tragedy in ocean-racing history.
The August 1979 Fastnet race, from Clewes on the Isle of Wight in the English Channel to the Fastnet lighthouse off the south coast of Ireland, started calmly enough for the 303 boats taking
part. The previous two years’ races had been so uneventful that some sailors, who included former British prime minister Ted Heath and American cable TV millionaire Ted Turner, were tempted not
to enter the race, one of several that make up the Admiral’s Cup. But once the boats left the shelter of the Cornish coast, they were hit by a storm that gained ferocity minute by minute until
it was blowing Force 10 (55 knots) and raising mountainous waves.
The storm killed fifteen men, wrecked five boats (another nineteen were abandoned), and 136 people had to be rescued in conditions that threatened the lives of rescuer and rescued alike. Among
the survivors were twenty-six men from Canada and the United States, whom the author has interviewed extensively. Beyond Endurance is Mayers’s dramatic story of the terrible seas, the
struggles to stay alive, and the heroic rescues made during what remains the worst tragedy to befall an ocean-sailing race.
