The Proving Ground : The Inside Story of the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "PHYSICALLY AND CULTURALLY, the harbor is the center of Sydney, never more so than the day after Christmas, when the start of the 630-mile race..." (more)
Key Phrases: Winston Churchill, Sword of Orion, America's Cup (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In The Proving Ground, journalist and lifelong sailor G. Bruce Knecht tells the staggering story of the 54th Sydney to Hobart yacht race--an annual event that is always an extreme test of courage and skill in some of the world's most treacherous seas, but which in 1998 would become the most disastrous race in modern yachting history.

Although he was already fifty feet from the boat, Brownie didn't have any trouble spotting Glyn. He looked small, and utterly helpless.... Glyn was already having a hard time keeping his head out of the water, and everyone quickly reached the same unthinkable conclusion--Glynn was going to die and there was nothing to do but watch.... Steve Kulmar was more shaken than anyone. When he first came on deck, he believed Glyn was looking directly back at him.

Of the 115 boats that started under clear skies in Sydney, just 43 would finish. Six sailors lost their lives, and a further 55 were plucked from the storm after the fleet had been decimated by unforecast hurricane winds and 80-foot-high waves.

Knecht's style is novelistic, though measured, with a strong journalistic sensibility marshaling what must have been at times appallingly poignant eyewitness testimony into a coherent account of the disaster. His intended focus is beyond the headlines, and by concentrating on the experiences of a handful of individual crews, The Proving Ground succeeds in conveying the agonies of their desperate, sometimes futile struggles to survive--and offers some insight into what drew them to the sea in the first place, and why so many of the survivors have felt compelled to face it again. --Alex Hankin, Amazon.co.uk

From Publishers Weekly

Inspired by Charles Kuralt's "On the Road" reports for CBS News 20 years ago, Idaho journalist Johnson pitched an idea to his editor at the Lewiston Morning Tribune: a column based on the idea that a reporter "could go to the phone book, pick a number randomly, and do a story on whoever answers." More than 800 columns later, Johnson's brand of "everybody has a story" journalism has achieved a certain national notoriety, having been parodied by comic luminaries like David Letterman and Jon Stewart. In this, his first book, however, Johnson's stories fall flat. Instead of fascinating in-depth profiles, Johnson uses only brief summaries of his subjects' lives to relentlessly explain the ups and downs of his own life (his first jobs, his first divorce, his love of nature, his love of women, etc.) Unfortunately, Johnson doesn't offer the same perspective on his own story as he does, say, on Florie, a ZZ Top-loving twice-divorced mother of five. His personal insights are facile ("I love to hear about the old days and look at historical pictures"), and his reporting lacks depth ("Here was a man who, with a cultivator and other gardening implements, had made the world more beautiful"). A collection of his best columns would have been a much better way for Johnson to show how he learned that "the most important lessons are found not at the pinnacle of what we consider news, but amid the routine ups and downs experienced by everyday people."
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Little Brown and Company; 1st edition (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316499552
• ISBN-13: 978-0316499552
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #630,708 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sea Story, May 23, 2001

By	Guy Nowell (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

As an experienced offshore sailor, I found Knecht's book absolutely riveting. He sets out to examine why it is that already highly-successful people (who don't necessarily have anything to prove) are tempted to put their lives at stake competing in a yacht race. He then goes on to describe and examine what went wrong, and why. He deals with the meteorology, the nature of the yachts, the personalities of the crews, and their reactions to severe stress and, in some cases, disaster.

Offshore sailors know why we do it anyway: racing yachts is exciting and challenging. Knecht reports impartially on the attitudes and judgement capacities of those he interviewed. He asks all the right questions, and passes no judgement on the answers. He does not attempt to draw conclusions, and makes no recommendations. He reports, and well.

Non-sailors will enjoy this book because it is so damn exciting. They will be amazed - maybe horrified as well as stirred - at some of the characters and events described.

Sailors will enjoy it too, recognising events and personalities that we have all seen before, but maybe on a less extreme scale and under less extreme circumstances. Sailors SHOULD read this book because it will give them a better understanding of the well-worn maxim that "what CAN go wrong sooner or later WILL go wrong". Then they may be better prepared for that awful event, but it still won't stop them going to sea!

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sea stories and Yacht Racers, June 18, 2001

By	Franklin D. Ross (Anaheim, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This book should appeal mostly to people who like rollicking good sea stories and also to yacht racers who want and need to get a better understanding of the terrible tragedy that was the '98 Sidney Hobart Race.

For the sea story lovers, this book is much better than "The Perfect Storm" by Sebastian Junger because a sea story (or any story for that matter) should have a begining, a middle and an ending. "The Perfect Storm" had a good beginning, a better middle but no ending. No one knows what heroism kept the Anita Gayle afloat and what cowardice or misfortune caused her to sink. Fortunately, in the '98 Sidney-Hobart race there were enough survivors to tell the story from beginning to end and author Bruce Knecht has recorded the stories in a very readable account. Yacht racing terms have been defined for the uniniated but not to the point of being pedantic. This is a most interesting account of the behavior of people under tremendous stress.

For the yacht racers, Bruce Knecht has chosen to focus primarily on 3 boats. The first, a heavy, conservative cruising boat (Winston Churchill) which sank before encountering the height of the storm. The second, a 15 year old IOR design boat (Sword of Orion) which was rolled and was literally coming apart at the seams but which provided a floating refuge until the crew could be rescued. And third, a modern light weight boat (Syonara)which, although suffering structural damage and delaminations, went on to finish (and win)the race. "The Proving Ground" is a good companion book to Rob Mundle's "Fatal Storm" which is a broader over view of the whole race but which lacks the depth and insight of "The Proving Ground". I have often wondered if "The Checkbook", "The Rock Star", and "The Hired Hand" could pull their weight "out there" if it got really nasty. Well, this book answers those questions and you might be a little surprised at the answers. This book is no "Fastnet Force 10" but it comes close.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a gripping read!!!, June 18, 2001

By	Emily McKhann (NY, NY USA) - See all my reviews

I read The Proving Ground in one night ... I just couldn't put it down. And I didn't mind that I was exhausted from lack of sleep the next day because I so enjoyed the read. Bruce Knecht not only has written a detailed account of the horrific experiences of the yachtsmen on three boats in the Sydney-Hobart race, but he has captured what it was like for the sailors to endure the ordeal ... the fear, the heroic sacrifices, the physical endurance, and the struggle over having to make decisions that could result in fatal errors (which some did).

As an experienced ocean sailor, I can say that Mr. Knecht has done an excellent job of portraying life at sea on a racing boat, without getting overly technical. I recommend this book to anyone interested in a gripping adventure story with characters who are both heroic and flawed, and for the men who died, are also all too real.