The Long Way: Sheridan House Maritime Classic

By Bernard Moitessier

Book Overview

The Long Way is Bernard Moitessier's own incredible story of his 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, knock-downs, as well as overwhelming fatigue and loneliness. Then, nearing the finish, Moitessier pulled out of the race and sailed on for another three months before ending his 37,455-mile journey in Tahiti. Not once had he touched land.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1493042785
• ISBN13: 9781493042784
• Release Date: August 2019
• Publisher: Sheridan House
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.96 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.3" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Rapture of the Deep

This is simply the best sailing book ever, and very dangerous for anyone who has a settled life, but wonders if there might not be more. Resist this, if you can:"My real log is written in the sea and sky; the sails talking with the rain and the stars amid the sounds of the sea, the silences full of secret things between my boat & me, like the times I spent as a child listening to the forest talk."It is also a story about a competitive man who had the prize in his hands (winning a non-stop, solo around the world race), thought about all the cameras, newsmen, Brigitte Bardot in attendance et al, and decided to just keep on sailing.Oh yes, and the book is chock-full of extremely good advice about blue-water sailing. I wish I had a below-decks steering station with a plexiglass dome to look through...

A woman comments.......

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!

TAKE AWAY YOUR TROUBLES "THE SHORT WAY"

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

A stirring saga of one man's epic solo voyage.

I first read "The Long Way" back in the 70's and have revisited the book five or six times. It is my favorite among works of this genre. I think Bernard captures the many moods of his epic voyage - the joy, the fear, the exhilaration, the lonliness, the spiritual peaks and valleys - in language that is both rich and moving. The book also contains a good technical section in the back for those intersted in the practical side of simple self-sufficient ocean voyaging. This is a classic written by a sailor with the soul of a poet.