Ice Bird: The Classic Story of the First Single-Handed Voyage to Antarctica [Paperback]

David Lewis (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002

David Lewis and his small yacht, Ice Bird, set sail from Sydney, Australia, on a search for high adventure. The voyage, full of drama, emotion, and pain, takes place in the least hospitable and most fascinating part of the earth, the Antarctic. No one had ever sailed a yacht single-handed to Antarctica until David Lewis' attempt. Along the way, he would not touch land for more than fourteen weeks, facing mountainous seas, constant gales, snow storms, and freezing temperatures. Twice his small yacht was capsized and once it was dismasted 3,500 miles from help. His survival was a miracle of fortitude, skill, and some luck. Ice Bird is one of the great true sea stories of the twentieth century. It is also a tale of human endurance, a testimony of one man's will to overcome almost anything and everything-physical and psychological-to stay alive.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Imagine sailing alone for 14 weeks in freezing temperatures aboard a 32-foot sailboat. Imagine your boat capsizing three times, and losing your mast and rigging. And imagine doing all this without modern electronic navigational tools like the Global Positioning System. ICE BIRD: The Classic Story of the First Single-handed Voyage to Antarctica chronicles the author's 1972 trip from Australia to Antarctica aboard the sailboat ICE BIRD. Along the way, David Lewis sank into unbelievable despair as his small boat lost its mast, and he suffered frostbite and broken ribs. Eventually, he lost the use of his radio and engine, and was forced to hand-steer the boat. Though it was summer in the Southern Hemisphere, it snowed daily. Lewis faced gale-force winds and huge waves as he sailed 3,500 miles in his jury-rigged sailboat. Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. It tells the wonderful, true adventure of a man forced to overcome serious injury, damage to his boat and unbelievable stress as he captained his small craft more than halfway around the world at 60 degrees south latitude. If you enjoy sailing, read Lewis's adventure. You won't be able to put it down. --The ENSIGN

On paper, David Lewis's pioneering solo voyage from Sydney to Antarctica in 1972 doesn't sound like much, compared to the myriad of epic, sea-going adventures we're used to nowadays. But just a few pages into this gripping paperback, it's clear his horrific 23 weeks surviving towering waves, driving snow and a ceaseless, storm-force battering in the Southern Ocean can claim a proud place in the pantheon of nautical legend. No radio contact with home, three terrifying capsizes, two dismastings and frostbite left the middle-aged former doctor in mortal dread of his wild surrounds and saw him cowering inside the cabin for days on end. Lewis describes his lonely voyage in vivid prose and makes no bones about his navigational and practical mistakes along the way, or the conviction that gripped him for weeks after his dismasting that he would die on board. Lewis' disheveled arrival under jury-rig in the Royal Cape Yacht Club marina marks the end of an awesome tale as much a page-turner today as it would have been when it was first published 30 years ago. ----The Dorset Echo,

There can't be many people who, when leaving school, inform their headmaster that they are making the 450 mile trip home in a canoe. While David Lewis's first epic voyage at the age of 17 may have left him feeling a little flat with the anticlimax, his marathon voyage to Antarctica in 1972 was a first for single-handed yachts. A welcome reprint, therefore, which thriller writer Hammond Innes described as the greatest small boat voyage into ice since Shackleton's. Although Lewis acknowledges that many sailors would follow him to Antarctica in faster and smaller craft, he saw his role as a trailblazer and the trip as a means of coming to know himself as he really was. Where better to find out one's strengths and weaknesses than being left without any form of outside support in one of the harshest environments known to man? In doing his research before making the trip, background information provided him with the odd sleepless night after reading of 100 ft waves. His previous yacht having sunk, he was also without essential equipment, not to mention money to buy a replacement craft. Media interest in the venture being strong, he admits in his book that he had to be downright dishonest in some of the things he told journalists, who did not realize, in the late stages of planning the venture, that he was still without a yacht. Frantic activity secured Lewis a yacht, a 32 ft steel sloop designed by Dick Taylor of Sydney. --Lloyd's List

About the Author

David Lewis has published twelve books, including, We, the Navigators. He has made three solo Atlantic crossings, and became the first navigator in modern times to cross the Pacific without instruments, using only the sun and stars to steer by. A doctor, and an anthropologist, he now lives in New Zealand.

Product Details

• Paperback: 248 pages
• Publisher: Sheridan House (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1574091514
• ISBN-13: 978-1574091519
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #624,436 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #52 in Books > Travel > Specialty Travel > Solo Travel
  • #91 in Books > Travel > Polar Regions > Antarctica

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars icebird, July 19, 2008

By 

Brad Moseley (OSAGE BEACH, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ice Bird: The Classic Story of the First Single-Handed Voyage to Antarctica (Paperback)

Great story of brave Doctor who was first to sail ALONE to Antarctic....with analog watch, and no GPS! ! !

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book for sailors. A darn good one for the rest., October 30, 2011

By 

Getting There - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice Bird: The Classic Story of the First Single-Handed Voyage to Antarctica (Paperback)

At some point, almost everyone who ventures out to sea, or even hoists a sail and (briefly) ties their fate to the wind, dreams themselves back in the days of wooden ships and iron men. We wonder how our mettle would stand-up to the unforgiving challenges of sail in earlier centuries.

And while the harshness of the sea has not changed, technology has increased our mastery over it tremendously. Fiberglass boats are water-tight. Navigation requires less skill than ownership of a GPS, while the elements, are better tamed by Gortex than wool or linen. One begins to wonder whether there any real adventures to be.

Well, Dr. Lewis had a remarkable adventure 40 years ago, a time of primitive technology by today's standards. His immediate, engaging style of writing and his selection of anecdotes permit us to travel with him on his solo voyage to Antarctica. For example, when planning his trip, he finds a Russian chart which warns mariners that 30-ft waves are common at one point along his route. He expected this, but then realized that a Russian chart would not use the English system of measurement to convey wave height. Lewis's "30-foot waves" are actually 30-meter monsters, 100 feet!!!

Does that catch your imagination? Do you wonder what sailing through the roaring 40s and howling 50s is like in a small boat with huge seas and ferocious storms, constantly on-guard for icebergs, out of touch and beyond rescue, all in a wet sleeping bag and without dry clothes?

If it doesn't, then this is not the book for you. But if you like sailing stories; if you want to come as close as possible to freezing storms and terror at sea at home while remaining safe and dry, then look no further.

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible story!, June 5, 2011

By 

Terry Erickson - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ice Bird: The Classic Story of the First Single-Handed Voyage to Antarctica (Paperback)

Amazing and gripping story! One of the best I've read. I couldn't put the book down, especially the 1st part where he breaks his mast and somehow continues day after day basically without much hope of surviving. One of the greatest sailing journeys ever perhaps. This was in 1972 before sailors had the technology so common place now.

The reviewer R. Queiroz above, who mentions Amyr Klink, is completely clued out! On the planet I live on 1972 DID occur before 1989. Did this person even read David Lewis's book?