|
One feels the swell beneath while reading this book. I'm a soloist- a singlehander. Not by any means a comprehensive guide to sailing round the world but a capable sailor can learn from it.Buy this book. The last third or so discusses rigging, complete with diagrams. I really appreciate the way that being in tune with the sea and its environs is expressed in this book. So beautiful it almost brought me to tears.
No adventure. Unfortunately it's more of the same: dreary 'logical' daily accounts of boring sailing log details interspersed with equally dull, repetitive, shallow, wispy musings on nature. No excitement. No depth.
Moitessier is a lousy writer. No LIFE. No philosophy. I read the Logical Route and was bored stiff.
No passion. If this is what Zen posing, bearded frog cross legged sitting on deck contemplating your navel, waves and stars 16 hours a day does to you I think I'll pass. I bought this because I'm interested in taking up sailing and was intrigued why he gave up winning the race and sodded off to Tahiti instead. There's some soft rant against the 'machine' at the end.
This book allowed me to understand the trip and place myself into the position of the author.
Now that in itself would be a pretty extraordinary story - a certified classic sea-dog's yarn of the 20th Century - but because it happened in the wake (if you'll excuse the pun) of infinitely stranger behaviour from fellow competitor Donald Crowhurst, it has only ever achieved the lesser status of an interesting historical side-bar. However enthusiastic he is about ruminating on the place of man in the cosmos, Moitessier doesn't really explain, or embark upon any deep inner analysis of, his reasons for unexpectedly opting for another crack at the southern ocean over a tearful reunion with his wife and children. The humour derives from the transparent ridiculousness of the scenario, but that's in essence exactly what Bernard Moitessier's did: this memoir, largely extracted from his ships logs, is the story of the Frenchman who, when leading the round the world yacht race and in the home straight, peeled off went round again.
Moitessier was a genuine romantic, an anti-modernist to boot, and interlaced his narrative of the long journey (all good Boys' Own stuff) with quite profound ruminations on God, Grace, the Planet and the Eternal Horizon. The treatment of that last part of the voyage is peremptory and the book finishes somewhat abruptly on an atoll in Tahiti. To my surprise I found the book became less interesting as it progressed, when you would expect quite the contrary.
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 himself he did a lap of honour and hasn't been heard from since. None of Crowhurst's story is covered here, however (at the time Moitessier was ploughing around the Cape of Good Hope none the wiser, so that's hardly surprising) but those interested in Crowhurst's tragic tale are warmly recommended The Strange Last Voyage of Donald Crowhurst and the fine Channel 4 Film Deep Water, both of which also cover Moitessier's race in some detail.This is nonetheless a highly readable memoir of an unusually solitary man and, at times, is a vivid articulation of his his view of his place on the planet and his relationship with the elements. An interesting read, but I would recommend the Crowhurst story as a prelude.Olly Buxton
Only he didn't make it to the finish line first. For Moitessier's unexpected change of tack (if you'll excuse the pun) crystallised an even more bizarre - and tragic - chain of events which had been unfolding aboard Crowhurst's boat, the Teignmouth Electron.
And his times were all about the Anti-Hero, Man Against Machine, where winning is not an objective anymore, survival is.So when Bernard said 'the hell with your prize and money', he shocked the world and sailed on to immortality. Fortunately for Moitessier, he was a spiritual man, in tune with his times. Note that another member of the contest, Donald Crowhurst (please read Donald Hall's classic), harboured different fears - which conspired against his sanity, resulting in suicide.Read this book: it'll give you insights into sailing and the soul. Moitessier's tale is a tale of the 1960s - of spirituality, of anti-commcercialsm, of anti-estasblishment, of yoga, of nature. Sailing solo tends to bring out one's deepest fears - understandably.
|
