Against All Odds: Around Alone in the Boc Challenge

The BOC Challenge is a 27,000-mile, round-the-world solo sailing race held every four years. In his Newcastle Australia, Nebauer entered the 1994-95 contest and finished fourth in Class II (boats under 50 feet), ninth overall, in 181 days. He defeated neither his fellow Australian, David Adams, nor his archrival, Chaniah Vaughn, who easily outraced him, but along the way from Charleston, SC, to Cape Town to Sydney to Punta Del Esta in Uruguay and back to Charleston, Nebauer did have some unusual adventures, banging into a Cuban raft on the first day, rescuing a competitor whose ship sank in mid-Atlantic, being dismasted in a wild storm and later losing his rudder. Even granting the author credit for his courage and his persistence, his book hardly reads like an epic battle of man against the sea, as his boat had every conceivable development of naval and computer technology, including a satellite hookup. Helpful as are the diagrams and brief glossary, Nebauer's work, written in a personal, breezy journal style, will probably be of most interest to avid sailing enthusiasts. (Oddly, the acronym BOC is never explained.) (Mar.)