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The Long Way | 
 enlarge | Author: Bernard Moitessier
Creator: William Rodarmor
Publisher: Sheridan House
Category: Book
List Price: $16.50
Buy New: $10.09
You Save: $6.41 (39%)
New (25) Used (13) Collectible (1) from $9.97
Avg. Customer Rating:  23 reviews
Sales Rank: 36567
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 256
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.3 x 0.8
ISBN: 0924486848
Dewey Decimal Number: 920
EAN: 9780924486845
ASIN: 0924486848
Publication Date: January 1, 1995
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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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.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 18 more reviews...
 Simply the Best February 3, 2008
I'm a soloist- a singlehander. 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. One feels the swell beneath while reading this book.
The last third or so discusses rigging, complete with diagrams. Not by any means a comprehensive guide to sailing round the world but a capable sailor can learn from it.
Buy this book.
 Literary DOLDRUMS and SHALLOW waters. January 26, 2008
Moitessier is a lousy writer. I read the Logical Route and was bored stiff. 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. 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. There's some soft rant against the 'machine' at the end. No depth. No passion. No excitement. No philosophy. No adventure. No LIFE.
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.
Excellent work January 19, 2008
This book allowed me to understand the trip and place myself into the position of the author.
Curious side-bar memoir of a race overshadowed by other events January 15, 2008
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. 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. Only he didn't make it to the finish line first.
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. 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. 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. 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. To my surprise I found the book became less interesting as it progressed, when you would expect quite the contrary. 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 treatment of that last part of the voyage is peremptory and the book finishes somewhat abruptly on an atoll in Tahiti. An interesting read, but I would recommend the Crowhurst story as a prelude.
Olly Buxton
The 1960s: Rise of the Anti-Hero April 30, 2007
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
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. Fortunately for Moitessier, he was a spiritual man, in tune with his times. 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. 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.
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