Ocean Warriors: The Thrilling Story of the 2001/2002 Volvo Ocean Race Round the World - Hardcover

Mundle, Rob

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060508086 ISBN 13: 9780060508081

Publisher: Harper, 2003

Synopsis

Rob Mundle's 1999 international bestseller Fatal Storm was one of the publishing sensations of the 1990s. A gut wrenching account of the ill-fated 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race, it captivated readers with its drama, insight and unflinching honesty.

Now Mundle has turned his sights on perhaps yachting's greatest test: the Volvo Ocean Race, an around-the-world event in which competitors must cover more than 32,000 miles in 9 months. The yachts and their crews must cope with the punishing demands of nonstop racing and the unpredictable fury of the open sea.

Ocean Warriors: The Thrilling Story of the 2001/2002 Volvo Ocean Race Round the World chronicles the daily pressures of this incredible sporting odyssey on competitors, and documents the struggles and triumphs of the members of one particular team, Team NewsCorp, as they battle to become the world's best ocean warriors.

To succeed they must overcome the physical elements, from the oppressive heat of the tropics to the ferocious swells of the Southern Ocean, as well as the mental demands of the round-the-clock sailing.

A leg-by-leg, blow-by-blow white-knuckle adventure story, Ocean Warriors is vintage Rob Mundle, interspersed with the words of the competitors themselves. Like the race, it is nail-biting stuff.

About this title

About the Author

Rob Mundle is the author of the highly acclaimed international bestseller Fatal Storm, the story of the tragic 1998 Sydney-to-Hobart yacht race. Born in Sydney, Australia, he combined his journalism career with his favorite sport, becoming a specialist sailing reporter. He has won local, state and Australian championships, and contested many major international offshore events. In the 1980s, he established a career in television as a reporter, commentator and, at one stage, a prime-time news weatherman. He has reported on Six America's Cup matches, including the live international coverage of Australia's historic win in 1983, four Olympics and the annual Sydney-to-Hobart classic, as well as numerous other major races.

Reviews

Mundle (The Fatal Storm) recounts the nine months he spent aboard the Team News Corp boat in last year's Volvo Ocean Race, and all the excitement and setbacks that ensued. The nine-leg VOR has been held every four years over the past three decades. This 32,000-nautical mile race offers no prize money; participants brave temperature extremes, squalid living conditions, and sometimes 60-knot winds and seas "like liquid cliffs" just so they can sharpen the razor's edge. After incisive anecdotes in early passages, this chronicle soon suffers from too rigid a structure and not enough real-time storytelling. Mundle jettisons putting a face on the umpteen principals, and instead relies on excerpts from their observations, which disrupts the narrative and melds people (and events) into one another. It's like reading the transcripts of a gripping documentary, when all you really want to do is watch the movie. His set-up and wrap-up of individual adventures, including a skipper's gamble to sail between two iceberg peaks and crew members circumnavigation of a most unwelcome tornado, are indeed nail-biting, but the outcome's often foretold. Only as the race draws to a close does the action unfold in straightforward exposition.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

For the uninitiated, the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR), which takes place every four years, covers roughly 32,000 nautical miles and lasts almost 10 months. The VOR is grueling, nonstop sailing, and only the world's best even consider the possibility of entering the race. In the 2001-02 competition, with the longest course in the race's 30-year history, entrants departed from Southampton, England, sailed through the Atlantic down to South America, across the Southern Ocean to Australia and New Zealand, across the Pacific to Brazil, up to the U.S. (Miami and then Baltimore), and across the Atlantic to Sweden and Germany. This exciting book follows one entrant, Team News Corp, through that race. Combining thrilling, you-are-there narrative passages with quotes from the participants, Mundle (Fatal Storm, 1999) plunks readers right down on the Team News Corp yacht and sends them along on the voyage. Team News Corp placed fifth in the race, but that hardly seems important--as the author amply demonstrates, completing the race is all the reward that's needed. Perfect for fans of true-life, high-seas adventure. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Harper
• Publication date: 2003
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0060508086
• ISBN 13: 9780060508081
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224