Bernard Moitessier
Bernard Moitessier (born April 10, 1925 in Hanoi , † June 16, 1994 near Paris ) was a French sailor and publicist . His ostensibly most outstanding nautical performance was as a participant in the Sunday Times Golden Globe Race in 1968 and 1969, in which he was the first single-handed sailor to sail around the Antarctic non-stop from Europe and gave up the already certain victory in the regatta for personal reasons. According to the more recent interpretation of the term, this trip is no longer officially recognized as a circumnavigation of the world , since Moitessier only crossed the equator once after starting from England , and then sailed on to Tahiti in a one-and-a-half orbit around the world exclusively in the southern hemisphere. Because of the great media interest and his book publications, he unconsciously and against his personal interest contributed significantly to making single-handed sailing and sailing tourism generally known.
However, he made the trip, which is much more important for yachting, in 1965 together with his wife Francoise from Tahiti around Cape Horn to Alicante , Spain , and showed that discipline and seamanship are sufficient to master even the most difficult sea voyages. This was the starting signal for many couples with small yachts for numerous circumnavigations in the decades that followed.
Marie Therese
When his family left Vietnam at the beginning of the Indochina War , Bernard Moitessier stayed in the region, initially as a French marine, gave language lessons and worked as a sailor on cargo junk . So he came to Indonesia and in 1952 bought the little junk Marie Therese , with whom he wanted to slowly sail to France. His first destination was the Seychelles, more than 3,000 nautical miles away . For navigation he only had a compass to check the course and a sextant to determine the midday latitude , but no chronometer to determine the longitude or a radio with whose time signal he could have corrected his tin alarm clock. The transistor was not yet invented. After a total of 85 days at sea, he didn't even have a rough idea of where he was. In his opinion, however, he had sufficient knowledge and ability to orientate himself with the help of other information (land birds, cloud formation, dead seaweed, water color, shallow water fish). While trying to pass the Chagos Archipelago as a control point for his position estimation in sight, he stranded by chance, unexpectedly and far too early on September 14, 1952 on Diego Garcia and was shipwrecked. He thought he was much further east.
Marie Therese II
Since Chagos was a restricted military area, he was deported to Mauritius by a warship . There he gave travel lectures, produced charcoal and went underwater hunting with a harpoon . Seriously injured, he survived a shark attack in January 1953 and gained local fame for reporting it. As a result, he was offered a managerial role in a fishing company, which enabled him to earn income and finance a new boat. With the help of friends, he built it from scrap wood and other materials he could buy cheaply. On November 2, 1955, he left Mauritius for South Africa, where he got by with odd jobs and small rip-offs, but sailed on as soon as he had some money again. Via Sankt Helena and Ascension he reached Trinidad in the Lesser Antilles in early March 1958 . After several trips between the islands, he suffered another shipwreck on the island of St. Vincent in April 1958 under adverse conditions (time pressure, fatigue, bad weather, night, unsafe location), for which he was responsible, however. It was up to him not to expire under these anticipated conditions.
Joshua
.JPG)
Fortunately, he came to France via Hamburg , where he wrote down his story in the book Le Vagabond des mers du sud (German: Vagabund der Meere, 1976) and published it in 1960. His lively narrative style about his nautical and human adventures as well as the multitude of well-founded specialist information gave the book an undreamt-of success and a medium-term source of income. Despite his two shipwrecks, he was considered a popular sailing expert and advisor in France, which he also took advantage of financially through a lively lecturing and writing activity.
At that time it became apparent that classic wooden boat construction would not be able to meet the increasing demand for leisure yachts. Plastic boats were not yet tried and steel was unpopular. In this situation, the META shipyard from Tarare (France) approached Moitessier in 1961 with a new method of building pleasing steel boats and the offer to build him a steel ship according to his wishes at the price of the material. Moitessier's popularity was apt to act as a testimonial for the shipyard . In 1962, Joshua was completed and Moitessier gave two summers sailing and navigation courses in the Mediterranean.
On October 20, 1963, he and his wife Francoise of Marseille set out on a circumnavigation of the world, on which the two took too much time. When they arrived in Tahiti , they discovered in October 1965 that they had only made a third of the circumnavigation of the world in two years and were already a year behind their schedule. However, you should be back in France for the 1966 summer vacation because of the three children. It was clear that they would not have the discipline to rush through the next 20,000 nm in the “most beautiful part of the world” in just nine months. Turning around and sailing against the trade winds was even more hopeless. There was only the way around South America, around Cape Horn , about 14,000 nm without any break. Such a trip was unprecedented, although there have been enough failed attempts for shorter trips around Cape Horn.
They set out on November 23, 1965 and, after an adventurous journey in 126 days, reached Alicante in Spain on March 29, 1966 . At that time, at 14216 nm, it was the longest voyage of a sailing yacht. The report about it appeared in 1966 in the book Cap Horn à la voile (German: Kap Horn, der logische Weg, 1974) and was an even greater success.
Golden Globe Race
After Francis Chichester had set new standards with his one-handed circumnavigation of the world with only one stop in Sydney in 1967, Moitessier agreed to meet friends to try to circumnavigate the world without a stop. Chichester's definition met with general agreement (crossing one's own course, crossing each degree of longitude at least once in the same direction and crossing the equator at least twice ( circumnavigation )).
Also inspired by Chichester's journey, but independent of Moitessier, Robin Knox-Johnston turned to the Sunday Times with a request to finance his first non-stop single-handed circumnavigation in Britain. When, after research by the editors, it became known that other sailors besides Knox-Johnston were planning such a trip, the publisher launched a competition, laid down rules and donated two prizes: an honorary award for the one who would be back first, and one Cash prize of 5,000 pounds for the shortest travel time. The first didn't have to be the fastest, as a start window of five months was set to thwart similar projects from competing newspapers. Moitessier rejected the commercial project for ethical and seafaring reasons, but was ultimately persuaded to participate. As the most experienced sailor with the most tried and tested ship, he was considered the favorite for both prizes.
The main competitor was Robin Knox-Johnston, who, as a British merchant marine officer, was beyond any professional doubt and had already sailed his boat from India to England one-handed. He started on June 14, 1968 with his much smaller boat. Moitessier followed 69 days later on August 22nd, which did not have to be a disadvantage due to different ships and strategies, especially since early starters would encounter much harsher weather conditions and risk failure. Moitessier sailed about 25% faster than Knox-Johnston in the larger boat. Neither of them knew anything about this, however, as neither Moitessier nor Knox-Johnston had a radio on board to report the position regularly, or had other possibilities to find out about the status of the race. After Moitessier had mastered the dangerous Antarctic waters and "only" had to sail back to his port of departure in Plymouth under comparatively easy weather conditions , in early February 1969 he had doubts about what to expect at his destination. If successful, he believed for years that a self-corrupting system ("I can no longer bear the false gods of the West. Like the spiders, they are always on the lookout to eat our souls, to suck out our marrow.") Would be appropriated , with no chance of being able to retreat to his beloved South Seas. If not successful, the same system would condemn him directly. Nor did he dare to finish the race, receive fame and prizes and then go to the South Seas with the money. Faced with this dilemma , he gave up and sailed straight on to Tahiti, where he arrived four months later on June 21, 1969. He had covered about 40,000 nm non-stop (at least 37,000 nm, Moitessier never published the exact value) and crossed over 620 degrees of longitude. At that time it was the longest sea voyage without any land contact that a ship has ever demonstrably carried out, intentionally or forcibly.
There was and is much speculation as to whether Moitessier would have been able to overtake Knox-Johnston and win the prizes for the first and fastest non-stop circumnavigation. At Cape Horn he was only 20 days behind and about 7500 nm ahead of him. Knox-Johnston was supposed to need 95 days for this route because of various damage and material failures, but Moitessier would certainly need less than 75 days, since an etmal of 100 nm was easy for his boat to manage. 130 nm per day, i.e. less than 60 days in total, would have been realistic, but it should have arrived first. If Nigel Tetley's trimaran Victress, which had already been announced as the sure winner, had not unexpectedly broken apart 1200 nm from the finish, Tetley would have received the £ 5,000 and thus advanced the development of multihulls by decades.
The record for the longest sea voyage was only surpassed in 1982 by the Australian Jon Sanders with 48,510 nm in 419 days during a double one-handed non-stop circumnavigation under much better technical conditions. The current record was also set by Jon Sanders between 1986 and 1988, when he sailed three recognized one-hand non-stop circumnavigations in 657 days with a total of 71,023 nm. On April 21, 2007, the American artist and seaman Reid Stowe started his project "1000 Day Voyage" with the aim of spending 1000 days at sea without land contact and outside help and supplies. On January 15, 2010, he was at sea for the thousandth day when he was with his 21-meter-long gaff schooner Anne near the equator between West Africa and Brazil. At this point in time he had just completed a circumnavigation of the world, as he was sailing in circles in relatively safe and calm waters mostly very slowly and gently. It wasn't the aim to cover as much of the track as possible, so that Jon Sanders' 22-year-old track record remains safe.
After the race
Moitessier also wrote a book about this trip, La longue route (German: The given victory, 1974). Despite being ostracized by the establishment - in France he was initially seen as a deserter who had given the British a victory - it was also a success. It is an exciting story to read even for laypeople and in its second part it is a document of a personal change and at the same time an examination of Moitessier's modern society and the difficulties associated with it. However, it receives its special value from the recruitment of the reader as an imaginary crew member and confidante of the author and its appendix, in which detailed nautical knowledge, personal experience and strategic navigation are condensed into a few pages. Moitessier's books are absolutely required reading for ocean-going sailors and other people interested in sailing, as they deal with aspects of sailing that cannot be learned in any sailing school.
Only sporadic information is known about his life in the South Seas, as his goal was to "live in peace". However, he was recognized by many globetrotters and mentioned in their reports. He is said to have lived in a hut on the Tuamotus at the end of the 1970s . Driven by financial difficulties, he sailed to the USA around 1980 with the idea of a lecture tour, which however did not have the desired success.
On the way back to the South Seas, he took the actor Klaus Kinski with him as a paying guest . At the anchorage off Cabo San Lucas , both were caught by a storm on December 8, 1982 and the Joshua was driven onto the beach with many other yachts. The crushers washed it deep into the sand, which for Moitessier amounted to a total write-off in the situation. He gave them to the helpers who uncovered them again. It was later restored by patrons and has been in the port of the Naval Museum of La Rochelle since 1990 . She can be chartered for day trips.
In 1984 he had a new yacht built, but only sailed briefly. From 1985 he lived in Paris, where he worked as a writer for some time. There are no known publications in German (2008).
Bernard Moitessier died of cancer near Paris in 1994; a message from his German publisher Delius Klasing specified stomach cancer. At his request, he was buried in the Breton village of Le Bono near Auray on the Gulf of Morbihan .
Repetition of the Golden Globe Race in 2018
50 years after the 1968 race, several single-handed sailors are repeating the 30,000 mile voyage on replicas of the historic boats - but with modern communication devices. In September 2018, Abhilash Tomy, a 39-year-old naval officer from India, capsized and injured himself in the Indian Ocean with the "Thuriya", a replica of the ship owned by the British Robin Knox-Johnston, which won in 1968.
Trivia
He wrote the following statement: "A long ocean voyage is the shortest way to yourself."
literature
- Tamata - Memories of a Sailor (French: Tamata et l'alliance ), autobiography, Aequator Verlag
- Vagabond of the seas (French: Le Vagabond des mers du sud ), antiquarian
- Cape Horn, the logical way (French: Cap Horn à la voile ), antiquarian
- The given victory (French: La longue route ), Delius Klasing publishing house
- Vast seas, islands and lagoons (posthumous) (French: Voile, mers lointaines, iles et lagons ), Delius Klasing publishing house
- Véronique Lerebours: Encounters with Bernard Moitessier (French: Bernard Moitessier au fil des rencontres ), Delius Klasing publishing house
Web links
- Literature by and about Bernard Moitessier in the catalog of the German National Library
- Photo: Bernard Moitessier
Individual evidence
- ↑ Bernard Moitessier: The Victory given away: Chapter 20 . P. 190.
- ↑ Bernard Moitessier: The Victory given away: Chapter 20 . P. 190: “You are really too stupid, you can try a little to get the price of the Sunday Times; right after that you can run out again ... Oh, I know this mechanism! "
- ^ The Museum of Yachting: 1st circumnavigation to the west, 2nd to the east, 3rd again to the west ( Memento of August 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). moy.org, accessed October 14, 2012.
- ^ A Thousand Days at Sea. 1000days.net, February 20, 2013, archived from the original on July 7, 2013 ; accessed on August 13, 2019 .
- ↑ Rescue operation for injured Indian sailors orf.at, September 23, 2018, accessed September 23, 2018.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Moitessier, Bernard |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | French sailor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 10, 1925 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Hanoi |
| DATE OF DEATH | June 16, 1994 |
| Place of death | near Paris |