Missing the Boat: Chasing a Childhood Sailing Dream

by Michael Hutchinson

The hilarious true story of an amateur boating adventure.Yacht racing. A world of privilege and money. Beautiful women, bronzed men, and Simon le Bon explaining that he used to be in a band. It's not like that for everyone. Somewhere much, much further down the ladder it all looks very different. As a teenager, Michael Hutchinson raced tiny plywood dinghies on Belfast Lough, amid shoals of sewage-eating jellyfish. For him, sailing became the kind of obsession that often as not ends with a psychiatric intervention. Turning pro was his only dream.Then, at the age of eighteen, driven to despair by his own unremitting mediocrity, he gave up. But he never stopped dreaming about it - what was he missing out on? How good or bad had he really been? Had it really been a wasted youth? At last, fifteen years later, he went back. Missing the Boat is the story of his comeback season, on the South Coast of England, in Ireland, and in the glamorous resorts of the Mediterranean. It's about the yachts, the people, the regattas, and just what it was like to dive back into a world that had become entirely alien.Michael Hutchinson won the Best First Book at the British Sports Book Awards.

Genres: Biography

256 pages, Kindle Edition

First published May 19, 2009

About the author

Michael Hutchinson (or "Hutch") is a British racing cyclist and writer who has represented Great Britain and Northern Ireland at events including the Commonwealth Games. His speciality is the individual time trial, but he has also won important races on the track. In 2003 he briefly held the national record for the 100 mile Time Trial; he covered the distance in 3 hours and 23 minutes. He also currently holds the 50 mile and 10 mile national records.

He has made two unsuccessful attempts at the hour record, the first of which forms the basis of his 2006 book The Hour. This won him the award for Best New Writer at the 2007 British Sports Book Awards.

Reviews

[Grace Turner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up at a reduced price from the "children's fiction" section of one of Glasgow's Waterstones because a) the cover art was adorable and b) it was evidently about sailing, and I have since childhood been obsessed with tales of intrepid seafarers. Imagine my surprise, then, when I realised a few sentences into this story that it was neither aimed at children, nor was it fiction. It is, in fact, the non-fiction account of one man's desperation to reconnect with the passion of his youth: boat racing. It's a touching, informative, readable story, though this is not the kind of genre I'll necessarily be purposefully buying on any other occasion.

[Dan Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another engaging book by the author of the excellent "The Hour" - witty and entertaining, and providing great insight into his background. I did not find this book quite as good as "The Hour", perhaps because I have more interest in cycle sport than sailing, but it's still a great read - recommended.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

A laugh out loud book about sailing. Very, very funny.