From the cover of the original 1984 hardcover edition:
"This is a sea story, an almost incredible sea story, and yet much more. The author, at the age of forty, has already sailed alone around the world once and is in the process of sailing it again--this time in an eighteen-foot open boat--in what is already the greatest open boat voyage of all time.
However, this is also the deeply moving story of a man who lost every human relationship he valued in the midst of his triumph--and has been willing to write about it in this most dramatic account of adventure as he sails from the New Hebrides, where he had been wrecked, to Saudi Arabia, where he was thrown in prison after a voyage of extreme difficulty.
It is a sea story, a romance, and a tragedy--a remarkable narrative of what works within a man driven to adventure while coping with inner demons."
Also included in this edition is CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE II, the story of the continuation of the voyage from the Red Sea to the Canary Islands in 1983.