I recently read "A Voyage For Madmen" by Peter Nichols. It is about the 1968 Golden Globe Race. It was a contest to see who could be the first to do a non-stop, solo circumnavigation. It was the best book I have in a while. They just did a movie based on it.
Staying with the sailing theme, "The Proving Ground" by G. Bruce Knecht is really good. It is about the 1998 Sydney to Hobart race which encountered bad weather.