The Race is a taut, thrilling account of the first running of the sailing competition called The Race, which began on December 31, 2000, in Barcelona and ended sixty-two days later in Marseilles. The most extreme event of its kind -- a nonstop circumnavigation of the world -- The Race attracted some of the world's best sailors and arguably the most eccentric personalities. Other contests have pushed people and boats past their limits, but no race has ever left so little margin for error. The rules were deceptively simple: the boats could be of any design, any size, and nearly everything had to be powered by human muscle alone. The first boat across the finish line would win. Tim Zimmermann, an experienced blue-water sailor, garnishes his behind-the-scenes story with a chronicle of the tumultuous history of extreme sailing in craft from nineteenth-century clipper ships to today's dangerous, high-tech multihulls -- the huge, screamingly fast, notoriously unstable boats that ran The Race. The engrossing, suspenseful story of the ultimate in extreme sailing, The Race relates how and why participants risked millions of dollars and their lives to dash around the world in record time.