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Product Description
Product Description
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.
About the Author
Bernard Moitessier became a legend in his own time as one of the greatest ocean voyagers. A gifted writer, he was born in 1925 in Indochina and gained much of his sailing knowledge from the fishermen of the Gulf of Siam.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
38 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read The Long Way first in the 1970's when I fancied doing sailing as a life during a crazy fit of romanticised thinking about my own future.
Moitessier's account of his voyage and how he abandoned the race made the story rather as though it should have been called "Zen and the Art of lone sailing"!
He was a mystic and his roots in Vietnam and France all helped him to have a very metaphysical outlook on the art of sailing alone around the world battling the elements of nature and with himself. It's not the usual run-of-the-mill single-handed stuff. His writing style was so well-structured that he even wrote interestingly about being bored for days on end when becalmed in The Doldrums at the start of the race.
Then his account of how he went on to abandon the race and sail more miles than almost anyone else had ever done without touching land was superb. It showed how he was emulating Joshua Slocum the first ever long-distance solo yachtsman and he wrote about his respect for that person very touchingly. He named his boat Joshua in tribute.
One might imagine that once he'd left the cut and thrust of the race around the world that he'd run out of things to grip the reader with, but this was not so. He kept interest going with his communion with nature and his unique way of being part of the experience of all that was good, bad, terrifying or ecstatic in turns about sea voyages on your own.
The book The Long Way was nothing like other circumnavigations by all the famous people who were into that kind of thing at that time. But I read The Long Way several times and every time it seemed fresh in my mind. Like all good books, I found something new in it to think about on each reading.
I can recommend it. I lent mine to someone and they lost it. So I am going to buy another copy and read it again after a lapse of some 23 years. It's going to be as fresh as ever.
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Having read many books on the sea; this captured some of them moments which most sailors can't begin to put in to words let alone fill a book with.
Fantasticaly written and descriptive to the point of feeling the real world slip away to a blue ocean with nothing but dolphins and the wind for company. Great....
Fantasticaly written and descriptive to the point of feeling the real world slip away to a blue ocean with nothing but dolphins and the wind for company. Great....
12 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
The other reviews seem to be from armchair sailors, so I add mine as a solo yachtsman.
Moitessier is a mystic and very French in his philosophical description of his experiences... reading this on land one can't help but feel that he is rather self-obsessed, the small notes of interest that he finds in such repetitive and lonely struggles are rather pale in comparison to any work of fiction.
But having been out there alone, I find that he catches perfectly the changed state of mind, and the ground swell of emotions that build over days. This is the perfect book to help you understand the frustration of the calms, the fear/adrenalin rush of the storms, the warm glow of humanity that diffuses through the crackly short-wave broadcasts.
If you ever plan to go it alone, buy this book.
I would not leave port without it - I found nothing so calming when faced with a falling barometer as to read about his major storms and the gentle stoic way he endured.
A good holiday read? No. More a manual for understanding your self and your boat, that you will reread to relive your own memories or to prepare for their making.
Moitessier is a mystic and very French in his philosophical description of his experiences... reading this on land one can't help but feel that he is rather self-obsessed, the small notes of interest that he finds in such repetitive and lonely struggles are rather pale in comparison to any work of fiction.
But having been out there alone, I find that he catches perfectly the changed state of mind, and the ground swell of emotions that build over days. This is the perfect book to help you understand the frustration of the calms, the fear/adrenalin rush of the storms, the warm glow of humanity that diffuses through the crackly short-wave broadcasts.
If you ever plan to go it alone, buy this book.
I would not leave port without it - I found nothing so calming when faced with a falling barometer as to read about his major storms and the gentle stoic way he endured.
A good holiday read? No. More a manual for understanding your self and your boat, that you will reread to relive your own memories or to prepare for their making.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
The long way
On 22 August 1968, Bernard Moitessier, an experienced sailor regarded in his native France a national hero, set sail in his yacht "Joshua" from Plymouth on the first single handed... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mr. D. Rowland
A must have for those who love to sail
Very interesting. It is not a masterpiece of literature but it is a book full of experiences, problems solutions and emotions.
Published 8 months ago by A. Tavoularis
The Long Way
This is an excellent book. Much more poetical than other sailing books - a man in touch with the sea. Lovely to read. Read more
Published 14 months ago by ChrisW
Bernard Moitessier - The Long Way
I really enjoyed this book and ended up feeling a kindred spirit with this truly great sailor. It`s not the usual tale of the solo circumnavigator, indeed apart from the appendix,... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Armchair Circumnavigator
THE BEST BOOK ON SAILING
Moitessier was the most mystical of sailors. This book tells of his solo round the world voyage in 1968 in the Sunday Times race. Read more
Published on 28 Jan 2010 by P. R. Thellusson
Poetry in motion
Whenever I see a copy of this book I buy it - simple as that. Romanticist, realist, adventurer and supreme soloist with a powerful ability to paint mental pictures for anyone... Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2009 by Crispin Latymer
Curious Side-bar to the Crowhurst Saga
There is an old and, these days, rather politically incorrect joke about the first [insert nationality of your choice] man to win of the Tour de France, who was so pleased with... Read more
Published on 15 Jan 2008 by O. Buxton
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