Team Spirit ― Life and Leadership on One of the World's Toughest Yacht Races

The Clipper Round the World Yacht Race is the ultimate long distance challenge – a 35,000-mile circumnavigation of the globe, contested by amateur crews in identical racing yachts. The 2010 winner was 28-year-old Brendan Hall and his crew in Spirit of Australia. Although Brendan was the youngest and least experienced skipper in the race, the win was no accident – it was the culmination of years of training, skilled navigation and a leadership style way beyond his years.

His skills were soon put to the test – in the middle of a North Pacific hurricane, Brendan went to the rescue of a competing yacht and skippered both boats across one of the most feared oceans in the world. This brutally honest, no-holds-barred account is revealing and instructive, with valuable lessons in leadership and management – as well as never giving up. Thrown in quite literally at the deep end, he is pushed to the limit, and learns lessons you can only learn the hard way.

Brendan Hall began sailing at the age of four in his home waters off Brisbane, and was racing by the age of 19. He was 27 years old when the 2009/2010 Clipper Race began, and had to transform a motley crew of 18 amateur sailors into a race-winning sailing machine, as well as battling life-threatening weather conditions, gear failure and rescuing two other yachts in the dangerous North Pacific Ocean. He is currently cruising and racing in the Caribbean.