Nick Ward, who survived the disastrous 1979 Fastnet race aboard the 30-foot Grimalkin, has recently published a book about his experience.

It’s called Left for Dead: The Untold Story of the Greatest Disaster in Modern Sailing History, and it ought to make interesting reading for anyone heading offshore in a small boat. For a preview, read the story over at the Telegraph.

But a word of warning: I suggest you read it while you’re safely moored in a well-protected harbor somewhere. I was once sailing across the Pacific, and we made the mistake of listening to the book-on-tape version of The Perfect Storm when we were about seven days out…what a stooopid idea that was!

Especially when we got to the part where author Sebastian Junger describes PRECISELY what happens, physiologically, to the human body when it drowns. We listened to that just as night was falling. What were we thinking?!?