Sailing Alone

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Sailing on a boat by yourself out at sea and out of sight of land can be exhilarating or terrifying, compelling or tedious - sometimes it can be all of these things just in one morning. It is an adventure at odds with our normal, sociable lives, carried out floating on a medium wholly inimical to our existence. But the deep ocean is also a remarkable place on which to think.

Richard King's enormously engaging and curious new book is about the debt we owe to solo sailors: women and men, young and old, who have set out alone. Spending weeks and months alone, slowly, quietly and close to the ocean surface is to create the world's largest laboratory: an endlessly changing, capricious and startling place in which to observe oneself, the weather, the stars and myriad sea creatures, from the tiniest to the most massive and threatening.

This is a book for anyone who is fascinated by sailing, solitude and the vast seas that cover so much of our planet.

'An exceptional book. Sailing Alone belongs on the very small shelf of the true classics of the sea' Peter Nichols, author of Sea Change and A Voyage for Madmen

©2023 Richard J. King (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

Sailing alone is a dream that goes from a magical to a mystical atmosphere, depending on who you are. For those who have done it, it's an extreme experience, sometimes indescribable. Writers may find the words to share it and help to understand why and how we embark on the adventure. Richard King is one of those writers: follow him, you will know
Isabelle Autissier
An engaging, beautifully written history of single-handed sailing ... Packed with ripping yarns and driven characters.
The Economist
Those who have chosen to face the dangers of the ocean alone are a colourful and inventive bunch ... I was delighted to read of [King's] amazement.
The Times
The book is as much a feat as the crossing ... something to be marvelled at ... I've already started plotting my own ocean crossing.
Prospect
First-hand accounts evoke the elation, frustrations and dangers of life in a small boat crossing the ocean ... King assembles a truly eccentric, even flamboyant cast of solo sailors.
Financial Times
Richard King is a superb and gifted writer, and Sailing Alone is an exceptional book. Into his account of his own singlehanded ocean crossing, he has woven a rare and compelling history of the real explorers, the extraordinary 'ordinary' people-men, women, and even children-who took off alone, in tiny, often crude boats, and found what we are all searching for. Here is the real story of what it's like to be alone at sea. A real achievement that will provide inexhaustible re-reading, Sailing Alone belongs on the very small shelf of the true classics of the sea.
Peter Nichols, author of Sea Change and A Voyage for Madmen
Sailing Alone is a beacon, a lighthouse of luminance for the experienced and inexperienced alike. Richard King's insightful reflections on the stories of lone voyagers make this required reading for all who dream fervently of such voyages. A nuanced study in aspiration, endurance, terror, and triumph, it's a treasure.
Jon Wilson, Founder, WoodenBoat
Praise for Richard J. King's Ahab's Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick: 'Anyone who loves Moby-Dick should read this book'
Nathaniel Philbrick, author of In the Heart of the Sea
A superb work of popular scholarship that rivals the best books of maritime non-fiction currently in print ... a joy to read.
Dan Brayton, author of Shakespeareu2019s Ocean
A wide-ranging, highly personal, richly eclectic, and extremely well-researched book whose style and humour, combined with its rigor, suggest the potential for popularity beyond the fascinations of this self-confessed whalehead ... A contemporary, witty, almost postmodern field guide.
Philip Hoare, author of The Whale

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