Description
Ice Bird is not only the account of one of the greatest small-boat journeys of all time. It is also a story of human endurance, a testimony of man’s will to overcome almost anything and everything – physical and psychological – to stay alive.
David Lewis set sail from Sydney on 19 October 1972. Through the ‘Roaring Forties’, through the ‘Furious Fifties’ he sailed on. Mountainous sea, constant gales, snow storms, freezing temperatures accompanied him until the sixth week when, on 19 November, 3600 miles out from Sydney, and 2500 miles from the Antarctic peninsula, Ice Bird capsized and was dismasted.
The proud yacht of a moment before had become a wreck: high adventure gave way to an apparently foredoomed struggle to survive. Yet, incredibly, after capsizing a second time, and in an astounding feat of navigation, Ice Bird made landfall at the U.S. Palmer Antarctic station, fourteen weeks after having left Sydney. There, the shattered boat was repaired.
In December 1973 David Lewis set sail on the second leg of his perilous journey through pack-ice and towering bergs, only to capsize yet again. Ten weeks later, exhausted and battered as Ice Bird, he reached Cape Town.
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