Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Pete Goss became a national and international hero when he rescued French yachtsman Raphael Dinelli as his boat sank beneath him in the round-the-world single-handed sailing race, the Vendee Globe, on Christmas Day 1996. In doing so Pete scuppered his own chances in the race but was awarded the Legion d'Honneur by France's president and made a friend for life in Dinelli. Close to the Wind is his own story of the race and its dramas, his revolutionary boat, Aqua Quorum , his thoughts and emotions during four months of solitude at sea, the extraordinary surgery that he had to perform on his own elbow and the aftermath of the rescue in the Southern Ocean.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

During the 199697 Vende Globe Single-Handed Non-Stop Round-the-World Race, one sailor perished and three had to be rescued in the Southern Ocean off Australia. Goss, a professional British sailor, tells the story of his race experience along with his daring rescue of Frenchman Raphael Dinelli, a fellow racer. Beginning with his career in the Royal Marines, he tells of his love of sailing and his ultimate goal of competing in the Vende. It took him nearly ten years to finance and build his 50' composite boat with an innovative swing keel and lee boards. He constantly struggled for sponsorship to avoid creditors, even to the point of mortgaging his own house. An author promotion site at (http://www.PeteGoss.com) has audio clips of Goss retelling some of the more exciting parts of the book. This is a compelling and well-written account sure to be popular at public libraries.John Kenny, San Francisco P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Yachting's aristocratic aura dissipates in this sailor's story of his participation in the sport. Goss is just a sailing enthusiast who after his severance from Britain's Royal Marines discovered in himself the fund-raising and public relations skills necessary to enter a boat in a transoceanic sailing race. There are several such contests regaled herein, but the most important one this book is about made Goss a hero in France and England. The Vendee Globe is an incredibly arduous solo circumnavigation race, a jousting match with Neptune often fatal to its entrants. Goss foiled one thrust of the trident in the 1996^-97 Vendee, when, in the Southern Ocean, an Australian search-and-rescue unit vectored him toward the foundering hull of a French competitor, whom he pulled half-frozen from the water. Goss' authenticity is as remarkable to readers as his sailing resourcefulness must be to sailors, and aficionados of adventure narratives will appreciate being vectored toward his attention-holding account, dashed with self-deprecatory jauntiness. --Gilbert Taylor

Kirkus Book Review

A prepossessing account of all it takes to enter the hellacious solo race around the Southern Ocean called the Vend‚e Globe and how to become a hero. Goss is a can-do guy. He wants to sail around the world, through the roughest seas. Without bluster, he gets on with it. He drums up money and a training boat. He delays his gratification without grumbling when his responsibilities on the home front so necessitate (mouths to feed, a family to love'that comes first), but he keeps his eyes on the prize. Here, in prose as trim as his vessel, he details what it took to finally get a crack at the Vend‚e Globe'all the funding proposals, the design testing on shake-out runs''The trick was not to take life too seriously, always see the funny side and never let something brew up until it got out of proportion.'' Then, during the race, a hurricane overtakes him; readers, sensing Goss's reluctance to exaggerate, will appreciate how bad it is when he observes: ``No time to tidy the reefing lines. I flaked out the staysail halyard and freed the clutch; couldn't afford niceties.'' The storm is threatening to eat him alive when he gets an SOS: 160 miles away, to windward no less, a fellow sailor is in peril. ``The decision had been made for me a long time ago by a tradition of the sea. When someone is in trouble you help.'' He miraculously saves his fellow sailor, performs unanesthetized surgery on his own elbow while his boat rolls about in heavy seas, and goes on to finish the race. Goss then turned his up-to-it spirit to writing this book, doing his best to tell the story well, professionally, and honestly and with verve. He pulls that off, too, just like finishing the Vend‚e Globe, just like saving a life. Incredible. (16 pages color photos, not seen)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Pete Goss is a professional yachtsman and a former member of the Royal Marines. After nine years in the Marines he left to embark on a full-time sailing career which led to success in the single-handed transatlantic race and the Vendée Globe, during which he rescued fellow-yachtsman Raphael Dinelli. He continues to sail all over the world and lives in Cornwall with his family.