Team Spirit: Life and leadership on one of the world's toughest yacht races

by Brendan Hall

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408187999
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	08/29/2013
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

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.

Table of Contents

Route Map 8

Foreword Sir Robin Knox-Johnston 10

Preface 12

1 Leadership: The only real training for leadership is leadership 14

2 The Race: Every artist was first an amateur 16

3 Inspiration: First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do 20

4 Preparation: To be prepared is half the victory 24

5 Team Spirit: If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself 44

6 Training: We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit 54

7 Racing at Last: Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success 70

8 Judgement: A man should learn to sail in all winds 101

9 Attitude: Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference 128

10 Persistence: No great achievement is possible without persistent work 143

11 Danger: He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea 165

12 Full Circle: It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves 205

Epilogue 223

The crew of Spirit of Australia 229

Appendix The entire text of my Team SPIRIT vision 233