Moitessier: A Sailing Legend

by Jean-Michel Barrault, Janine Simon (Translator), Peter Nichols (Introduction)

In 1968 during the Golden Globe, the first solo non-stop race around the world, Bernard Moitessier sent the following message with a slingshot onto the deck of a freighter, 'I am continuing ...' With this unbelievable decision to turn his back on glory and money, when he had victory in his grasp, and continue sailing to the Pacific Islands after seven months at sea, he became a guru for all small boat sailors. Jean-Michel Barrault was his friend for 36 years. He met him when Moitessier, having survived two shipwrecks, went to Paris in search of work. He got him to start writing about his adventures, which Moitessier did beautifully. More adventures followed, a trip from Tahiti to Spain via Cape Horn as a honeymoon. After finishing 'The Long Way', his most famous book, Moitessier and Joshua, his 39-foot ketch spent many years in Polynesia where he built his own house, planted coconut trees and transformed his atoll into a speck of green in the middle of the South Pacific. He lived in the United States for a time, lost his boat in Cabo San Lucas during a hurricane, and spent his last years in France, where he wrote his memoirs. Shortly before his death, Tamata and the Alliance was published to great acclaim. Moitessier, the internationally known sailor, writer and ecologist, became a legend in his own time.

224 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2005

Reviews

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Moitessier, as told from someone with an outside perspective, and it will probably change your perspective. Most people, myself included, will read The Long Way, and belief Moitessier to be a sort of mystic monk that exceeds almost all spiritual standards for being "enlightened."

But if you actually think about his life, and what he did, you start to see that it isn't all roses and lilies, as Moitessier's books would have you believe. His friend wrote this biography after Moitessier died, and it offers a fantastic outside view of the sailing legend's life.

And to be honest, Moitessier is kind of a dead-beat hippy. Yes, he did some pretty amazing things with Joshua, but he also did some pretty terrible things. He turned his back not only on the Golden Globe prize, but also on his wife and children. He shirked responsibility in order satisfy a mystical whim and to protest what he thought was a capitalistic decline in society. You know the money from publishing The Long Way that he wanted to go to the church or to a city in France? Moitessier ended up accepting that money in the end, because he needed cash. The son he had with an immigrant in Tahiti? He left both of them in San Francisco because he wanted to write an autobiography in Tahiti. The dude was a manic-depressive sailor who made a few key decisions that catapulted him into the spotlight, but his actions should not be repeated, nor his reasoning accepted for the modern day man to make decisions.

So if you've ever read any of Moitessier's works, or want to know more about him, then definitely pick this book up.

[Rob Purdie · Rating 3 out of 5]

this guy was a freak

[Lindsay Eaton · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1968, Bernard Moitessier was one of nine sailors who set out to be the first to sail alone around the world in the Golden Globe Race. But, instead of turning left after rounding Cape Horn, Moitessier turned his back on glory and money, and kept on going west, back to his beloved Pacific Islands. The race winner, Englishman Robin Knox-Johnston, received a knighthood. But Moitessier "became a guru...Wise, familiar with Asian philosophy, and because he had the courage to say no, Bernard would come to influence a whole generation." This is the story of his life - from his childhood in Indochina in the 20's, to his death in France in 1994. Bernard Moitessier was a legendary sailor and a truly remarkable man. This is a book well worth reading.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives life a new perspective.

[Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a useful companion to Moitessier's own writings, lest you think he's some sort of Holy man/adventurer. His accomplishments are unassailable, but the path required was steep and hardly seemed to bother him at all. Wives and families left behind for the next adventure and an absolute disregard for capitalism and money left him at the mercy of handouts and friendly intervention.

It doesn't take away his message... Maybe it does. I'm going to read "Sailing to the Reefs" and "Tamata" soon and I'm glad I read this first for a clear perspective of his life.