Shortlisted for the Maritime Foundation Award for Best Book 2024 An exceptional book. Sailing Alone belongs on the very small shelf of the true classics of the sea Peter Nichols author of Sea Change and A Voyage for MadmenColourful and inventive The TimesSailing on a boat by yourself out at sea and out of sight of land can be exhilarating or terrifying compelling or tedious sometimes it can be all of these things just in one morning. It is an adventure at odds with our normal sociable lives carried out floating on a medium wholly inimical to our existence. But the deep ocean is also a remarkable place on which to think.Richard Kings enormously engaging and curious new book is about the debt we owe to solo sailors women and men young and old who have set out alone. Spending weeks and months alone slowly quietly and close to the ocean surface is to create the worlds largest laboratory an endlessly changing capricious and startling place in which to observe oneself the weather the stars and myriad sea creatures from the tiniest to the most massive and threatening.This is a book for anyone who is fascinated by sailing solitude and the vast seas that cover so much of our planet.