Even among sailors today, Bernard Moitessier remains something of an enigma. A genius?
An activist? An environmental pioneer? A little insane? Whatever he was, he wasn’t boring.122 Boating New Zealand
WORDS BY
ROSS GREENWOOD
PHOTOGRAPHY BY
SUPPLIEDfeature
Bernard
MoitessierHappiest alone
orn in Saigon, French Indochina, in 1925,
Moitessier grew up among the bustling
streets lined with tamarind and mango
trees, the fragrance of Asian spices on
every street corner. This land of dragons,
gods, spiritual superstitions and giant
temples would mould and shape his thinking forever.
Sometimes he would skip school to watch the junks plying
their trade up and down the river, and learned from the
fishermen as they readied their boats for the coming season,
clearing them of the palm fronds that covered them from the
harsh sun.
They taught him to caulk the hulls using handmade
wooden tools shared amongst the villagers. He watched the
women roll fibres on their thighs from which they made
fishing nets. Next to them the men would be making barbless
hooks from rolls of heavy gauge wire.
He spent hours hunting in the forest with his slingshot andB