Force 12

After Terminal Event, Thayer's well-received air-crash novel, this altogether amateurish, irritatingly overwritten techno-thriller imagining the Pacific Winter Challenge, an international sailing race from San Francisco to Japan on a northerly course, disappoints as it sinks in an ocean of technobabble and pulp romance. In a last desperate effort to keep his software empire afloat, Rex Wyman, CEO of Microsoft-like WorldQuest, comes up with the idea of a perilous world-class sailing event, intended as a publicity stunt. The craft he plans to help crew himself, the $50 million Victory, is a totally computer-automated yacht. WorldQuest VP Gwen Weld, the womanizing Rex's current sex kitten and a savvy programming prodigy, is key to the CEO's plans she will run the Victory's computers. Toby Odell, Rex's ex-partner, is also along for the ride, and tensions on board are evident immediately. The mayhem begins when, almost before the boat sails out of sight of the Golden Gate Bridge, the infallible software onboard shows an alarming glitch, then computer problems proliferate as a ""storm of the century"" engulfs the Victory. Up to her monitors trying to stay afloat on the deadly sea, Gwen receives help by e-mail from Capt. Jess McKay, a dashing parachutist with the rescue squadron of the Alaska Air National Guard. Jess, haunted by the role he believes he played in his older brother's death, is grateful for this chance to redeem himself. Wave by wave, clich by clich , the soggy saga sloshes toward a foreseeable finale. (Mar.)