Kirjahaku

This fascinating memoir spans the time from Moitessier's magical childhood in Vietnam to months before his death, is a beautifully written saga of physical adventure and spiritual growth. Born in the French Indochina in 1925, Bernard Moitessier grew up astride two cultures--French and Vietnamese--in a turbulent era that moved dramatically from peace to war. Imprisoned during the Japanese occupation, he was later drafted to fight the Viet Minh in a French war that foreshadowed America's own Vietnam involvement two decades later. Tamata tells how the 25-year-old Moitessier left Vietnam to answer the call of the sea. He led the life of a sea-gypsy, wandering the Indian Ocean, the South Atlantic, and the Caribbean, learning the ways of boats and the sea and surviving two catastrophic shipwrecks. His greatest sailing adventures followed, the Tahiti-Alicante passage and his ten month round-the-world solo voyage in 1969 when he withdrew from the Golden Globe Race and sailed on to Tahiti. Moitessier then spent three years on a remote atoll in the Tuamotu Archipelago. Called "Tamata" ("try it!") by his Tuamotu friends, he built a Polynesian-style house, planted coconut trees, and gradually transformed the sun-blasted coral into a speck of green in the middle of the South Pacific. After living in the United States, he spent the last years of his life in France. He is buried in a small fishing village in Brittany.

The Long Way is Bernard Moitessier's own incredible story of his participation in the first Golden Globe Race, a solo, non-stop circumnavigation rounding the three great Capes of Good Hope, Leeuwin, and the Horn. For seven months, the veteran seafarer battled storms, doldrums, gear-failures, knock-downs, as well as overwhelming fatigue and loneliness. Then, nearing the finish, Moitessier pulled out of the race and sailed on for another three months before ending his 37,455-mile journey in Tahiti. Not once had he touched land.

"I would like now to write a practical book that will cover three topics: boats, the sea, and the beachcombing life." These were the thought of Bernard Moitessier after he finished writing his last book, Tamata and the Alliance, while in Polynesia. The great master died in 1994 and never completed the book, but here it is, meticulously collected from hus many writings, published and unpublished, by his companion Véronique Lerebours Pigeonnière. Moitessier's notebooks include all the know-how and the 1001 tips of this legendary sailor, the knowledge he acquired on the water, in meeting with sailors, during long passages, and during his many years living on various islands. The first part of the book details how to prepare for an extensive cruise, what kind of boat to choose, the rigging, the sails, the anchors, on deck and below deck. The second part describes the passage: the weather, navigation, watch-keeping, and heavy weather. In the third part, Moitessier takes us to the South Sea islands and shows how to adapt to living on an atoll, gardening, fishing and attaining self-sufficiency.

Perhaps the title of this book, Bernard Moitessier's first, should have been "Sailing on the Reefs'--for that is exactly what he did, almost unbelievably, twice. After finding his beloved Marie-Thérèse, a beautiful junk in the Gulf of Siam, he set off across the Indian Ocean for Africa and eventually the Caribbean. Eighty days or so into the trip, Moitessier and Marie-Thérèse found themselves on the reef at Diego Garcia. It took Moitessier just nine months to build Marie-Thérèse II from scratch in Mauritius with no boat plans or power tools. From her launch he sailed her down to South Africa. His observations during a stay of almost two years are as interesting as the people he met and the innovative boat improvements he came up with. Unfortunately, he and Marie-Thérèse II managed to end up on the rocks near St. Vincent in the Caribbean. In between these two heartbreaking disasters is a tale of courage, resourcefulness, and creativity. It is told with refreshing honesty, in which Moitessier, still really an apprentice sailor, admits his blunders. And it is told with marvelous humor.

This is the story of Bernard and Françoise Moitessier's honeymoon voyage aboard Joshua, sailing from Europe to the islands of the Pacific and back by way of Cape Horn, the "logical route," because it was the fastest. Setting out from Tahiti, they make their way through the Roaring Forties, iceberg territory, and the relentless gale-force winds of the higher latitudes. They owe their survival to careful preparation, superior seamanship, and their sens of harmony with Joshua and the sea. Cape Horn is also the tale of how Joshua, Moitessier's dream boat, became a reality, and how he recovered from the disaster of losing his previous boat--which he himself had built--to pursue his great love: sailing the world's oceans.