When Pete Goss, competing in the Vendee Globe, the non-stop, single-handed round-the-world yacht race, received a Mayday from Frenchman and fellow competitor Raphael Dinelli, he didn’t hesitate. Turning into hurricane force winds in the desolate wastes of the southern ocean, he scuppered his own chances in the race but achieved the impossible as he pulled the near-dead Dinelli from his life raft forty-eight hours later.

In ‘Close to the Wind’ Pete Goss shares his adventures, hardships and philosophy – and the lessons learned – during the race and the ten years of preparation for it. He tells a thrilling story which encompasses the dramas of the race, his thoughts and emotions during four month of solitude at sea and his emotional homecoming, shared by 150,000 others.

Goss is a man for whom the quest for adventure is the stuff of life, about which he writes inspiringly – and with a wry smile.