**Shortlisted for the Maritime Foundation Award for Best Book 2024** 'An exceptional book.Sailing Alone belongs on the very small shelf of the true classics of the sea' Peter Nichols, author of Sea Change and A Voyage for Madmen'Colourful and inventive' The TimesSailing on a boat by yourself out at sea and out of sight of land can be exhilarating or terrifying, compelling or tedious - sometimes it can be all of these things just in one morning.It is an adventure at odds with our normal, sociable lives, carried out floating on a medium wholly inimical to our existence.But the deep ocean is also a remarkable place on which to think. Richard King's enormously engaging and curious new book is about the debt we owe to solo sailors: women and men, young and old, who have set out alone.Spending weeks and months alone, slowly, quietly and close to the ocean surface is to create the world's largest laboratory: an endlessly changing, capricious and startling place in which to observe oneself, the weather, the stars and myriad sea creatures, from the tiniest to the most massive and threatening. This is a book for anyone who is fascinated by sailing, solitude and the vast seas that cover so much of our planet.