Moitessier: A Sailing Legend

by Jean-Michel Barrault, Peter Nichols (Introduction)

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781574092042
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	08/01/2005
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

Table of Contents

	Introduction	vii
1	"I am continuing"	1
2	Childhood in Indochina	7
3	"Because I am happy at sea..."	17
4	Teachers and Guides	24
5	From MAITE to JOSHUA	35
6	Honeymooning around the world	48
7	Cape Horn	63
8	The great challenge	78
9	In harmony with the universe	91
10	What race?	98
11	Going home does not make sense	108
12	The masts in the water	117
13	Royalties for the Pope	122
14	The hippie years	133
15	Suvorov, the magic atoll	140
16	Utopia in Ahe	148
17	The fruit trees	160
18	The United States	168
19	The loss of Joshua	180
20	"Taking part in the creation of the world"	190
21	Return to Tahiti	200
22	The Alliance	207
	The Boats of Bernard Moitessier	223
	Chronology	231
	Bibliography	233

Editorial Reviews

A sailor, storyteller, lecturer and tormented soul, Moitessier reveals his life's voyage in this compelling book.

The Ensign

This affectionate portrait brings out all the talents and conflicts in its subject, a man of great enthusiasms, a man who cared passionately about people and the environment and who never succumbed to complacency or apathy.

The Sea Chest

Moitessier, a Sailing Legend is immensely readable and like any good story about the sea it is full of surprises and twists

Sailing