For several years Emma Pontin worked in a law firm in the City of London. Then aged thirty-two she embarked on a new career as an ocean-racing yacht skipper and instructor. But hours before the start of a transatlantic race in 2006, Emma received a telephone call that would dramatically change her life once more. She had invasive breast cancer. She had to return home immediately for a life –saving mastectomy, and over the coming months she endured debilitating chemotherapy and radiotherapy, followed by reconstructive surgery. Throughout her ordeal she continued to sail, race and instruct with the mind set that if she could still sail then she was alive. She did indeed skipper the transatlantic race, just a year after her diagnosis, and then the infamous Sydney to Hobart Race. She continues to battle the elements at sea, as she has battled her cancer, and draws inspiration from the sea in beating off her most threatening adversary. Written with humour and candour, Beating the Blowfish is a very personal story of two years in a young woman’s life, offering a unique insight into the experience of breast cancer.

Emma Pontin is a professional sailor with extensive sailing experience as skipper and instructor on large racing yachts. With 6 years 70,000 nautical miles,15 transatlantic crossings, the Sydney-Hobart yacht race and the infamous Fastnet Race her next challenge is breast canceraround the world, a full circumnavigation with a novice team made up of breast cancer survivors.

216 x 135mm | pp illus.| ISBN 978 1 906266 15 5 | £9.95 pk