The Long Way [Paperback]

Bernard Moitessier (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 1995

The Long Way recounts the incredible story of Bernard Moitessier's 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, and knock-downs, as well as overwhelming fatigue and loneliness. Then, nearing the finish with victory in hand, Moitessier suddenly pulled out of the race and sailed on. His 37,455-mile journey continued for another three months, finally ending in Tahiti. Never once in all that time had he touched land.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Moitessier is better known as one of the greatest ocean voyagers and was a legend in his time. Last month we reviewed the last book he wrote Tamata and the Alliance. This book is about his Round the World Race for singlehanded yachts. For Moitessier, the race finished in mid-Pacific after he had passed the three Capes and crossed his outward track, leading, and with the hardest sections behind him, he decided to forfeit the race and continue into the Pacific again, to anchor finally among friends in Tahiti. His actions were never explained by the news media; they could not have been, for the voyage had always been seen by Moitessier as something other than a sponsored, publicized, competitive event. It was on the ocean, alone with his boat, that Moitessier began to regard this as a voyage that could not end for him with the reward of those whose values were not his. --Sailing Inland & Offshore

One of the world's most famous ocean sailors, Moitessier had sailed for more than a year from Plymouth, England to the Indian Ocean when he inexplicably abandoned the lead in the 1968-1969 Round-the-World single-handed race. He sailed to Tahiti, dropped anchor and dropped out. Until the publication of this book, only Moitessier and a few friends knew why. Most of the book is a diary of that voyage with philosophical side trips into modern civilization. There is also a 60-page appendix that can stand alone as a small reference volume of details such as route planning, sail repair, the problems of sail and line chafe, rigging and hull construction, self-steering, freak waves and weather, plus much more. Altogether a strange, fascinating, and informative book. --BoatUS

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Sheridan House (January 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0924486848
• ISBN-13: 978-0924486845
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #76,246 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #59 in Books > Sports & Outdoors > Outdoor Recreation > Sailing
  • #79 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Travel

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A woman comments......., March 18, 2000

By 

"seamoth" - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Long Way (Paperback)

On my first reading, this book stirred my soul and shook me out of a decade of spiritual lethargy. On the second reading, I set about learning how to sail. On the third reading I bought my own 25' yacht. Now, many reads (and many months)later, and ready to begin my first solo passage, I am developing my own love affair with the sea. Thank you Bernard!

27 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars TAKE AWAY YOUR TROUBLES "THE SHORT WAY", September 11, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: The Long Way (Paperback)

I've been reading and re-reading this book for over 10 years now, and the main reason is because of the peace and tranquility it gives to me. Every time I open the book, I set sail on Joshua as a solo sailor and experence what the "gods" of the open sea give so freely. Bernard was truly a man who knew how to deal with the inner man and fully experence all of life around him one day at a time. There will never be another Bernard Moitessier

25 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Hope and Beyond, November 15, 2005

By 

J. H. Minde "Everything I need is right here" (Boca Raton, Florida and Brooklyn, New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: The Long Way (Paperback)

It's occasionally difficult to remember that Moitessier's memoir of the first Golden Globe singlehanded sail circumnavigation back in 1968 even concerns a race. From the outset, Moitessier enraptures himself and enraptures the reader in a tale of man alone finding his own inner compass. Virtually all prose-poem, THE LONG WAY skitters off the edge of the mundane into a realm of sometimes numinous interior dialogue, but it holds the reader's attention throughout.

Moitessier entered the Round The World Race presumably to win, but he spends far more time communing with the seabirds and listening to the wave patterns on his boat, JOSHUA's hull than in dedicated yacht racing. In the end, Moitessier decided not to sail back to his starting point, but went on to Tahiti on the next step of his inner voyage.

THE LONG WAY is particularly interesting to read in juxtaposition with THE STRANGE LAST VOYAGE OF DONALD CROWHURST (Crowhurst went mad and simply stepped off his boat into the sea), and Robin Knox-Johnston's A WORLD OF MY OWN. Johnston prosaically suffered the miseries of a diet of canned bully beef, and a constant nervous but impeccably British Imperial xenophobic dread of how "The Frog" was doing. He wanted to be the winner, and was.

It's clear that Moitessier could have cared less what Knox-Johnston or the others were doing. JOSHUA is his private garden, and he invites us in to sample its mysteries. His Zen-like approach is more understandable when one realizes that he was French in parentage but raised in Indochina. A calm, accepting Buddhist tone glows throughout this book. If indeed Moitessier went mad (as some say he did) his madness was a doorway to spiritual peace, and not, like Crowhurst's, to sorrow and death.

Moitessier takes us THE LONG WAY toward beauty, value, and the validation of ourselves in what is, after all, a vast and playful universe.