Word: sea
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Godforsaken Sea, Derek Lundy, a gifted Canadian writer and amateur sailor, tells the story of the 1996-97 Vendee Globe. It gives readers the adrenaline rush of what Lundy calls "apocalyptic sailing." The sailors' skill is astonishing. "These are guys," an observer tells Lundy, "who can go downwind in 30 knots of wind, surfing on 20-ft. seas, carrying a spinnaker and full mainsail. And in those conditions they'll jibe the boat, with the spinnaker--at night, in the dark, alone!" Getting home alive was victory enough in the 1996-'97 race. Sixteen boats started from Biscay; nine finished...
Late 20th century entrepreneurs have invented high-adrenaline sports--hang-gliding, say, or canyoning. But the riskiest adventure is still to set forth upon open water and take a chance when, as the great single-handed sailor Joshua Slocum wrote a century ago, "the sea is in its grandest mood...
...experience may provoke grand writing, as it does in three new nautical sagas. Godforsaken Sea (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill; 272 pages; $22.95) is one of the best books ever written about sailing--in this case the extreme sailing required to go around the world solo in the toughest of all sailboat races, the Vendee Globe. Aboard wide-beamed, thin-hulled, 60-ft. racing machines--surfboards for maniacs, once they get to the 50-ft. waves of the Southern Ocean, which surrounds Antarctica--the Vendee Globe competitors are bound by brutally simple rules. They stipulate one boat, one person...
Even if fishing is brought under control, the Bering Sea faces threats that originate thousands of miles away. Wind currents from industrial areas far to the south bring in pollutants like insecticides and heavy metals, which collect in the tissues of wildlife and the local Inuit people. At the same time the region has been warming up, and part of the reason may be the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Whatever the cause, sea ice has been retreating farther to the north, making life harder for polar bears and other ice-dwelling animals...
...Bering Sea is far from dead, but the past offers warnings about the future. The famed George's Bank fishery off New England and Canada was once choked with cod. Now the population is so depleted that cod fishing has been banned in much of the area until the species recovers. In the still vibrant waters between Alaska and Siberia, humanity has another chance--perhaps the last chance--to prove it can take care of a crucial marine ecosystem...