Boating New Zealand — December 2017

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0 (km) 5000

0 (mi) 3000

Trajet du Joshua

(1963 - 1966)

E

S

O

SO SE

NO NE

Martinique

12/12/1964 - 14/02/1965

23/03/1965 - 01/06/1965Îles Galapagos 21/02/1965 - 16/03/1965Panama

Îles Marquises

22/06/1965 - 07/08/1965

Tahiti

20/08/1965 - 23/11/1965

Cap Horn11/01/1966

09/02/1966

La route logique

PACIFIQUEOCÉAN

OCÉAN

ATLANTIQUE

sailing small homemade outrigger canoes with his brothers.

Much later in life he’d say the years spent in the village would be

in his blood, even if he lived for a thousand years.

After completing agricultural college he worked at various

land-based jobs but always felt the call of the sea. Before long

he was back on the coast working for his friend on a fishing

junk. One night on the island of Tomassou, word came that the

Japanese had invaded Indochina and Moitessier hurried home.

He joined the Volunteer Liberation Group and was drafted

into the navy as an interpreter onboard a 600-ton gunboat

called the Gazelle. He spent the next 12 months fighting the

Viet Minh, suffering a gunshot wound in the process.

After the war, with his good friend Pierre Deshumeurs,

he purchased the decrepit hull of a Malaysian proa he named

Snark. They sailed her across to Singapore and on to Indonesia,

where the authorities, having condemned their boat, towed

them unceremoniously back to Singapore.

They sailed the leaking Snark back to Saigon while bailing

two tons of water a day. Soon after, he bought a gaff-rigged

Siamese junk he named Marie Therese and planned his first

single-handed adventure.

Once again he sailed to Singapore, but left there late in

the season for the Seychelles. He tacked against the fierce

southwest monsoon winds for five weeks, clawing his way south

into huge waves and blowing out his mainsail in the process.

By this time he felt completely in tune with his environment

of sun, wind and sea. Cautiously, he began thinking of himself

as an old salt. But with his last sun sight almost 40 days old,

it wasn’t long afterwards he found himself, head in hands,

sobbing, as he watched Marie Terese being torn apart on the

Diego Garcia reefs. He remonstrated himself “in this limitless

nation of wind, light and peace, there is only one old salt – and

that is the sea.”

After six weeks on Diego Garcia he made his way to

Mauritius where he began building his next boat – Marie

Therese 2. He set himself up producing charcoal and invested

RIGHT A selection of

Moitessier’s books and

observations on life.

BOTTOM If life becomes

lonely at sea, adopt

the lotus position and

communicate with the

environment.

YOU DO NOT ASK A TAME

SEAGULL WHY IT NEEDS TO

DISAPPEAR FROM TIME TO

TIME TOWARDS THE OPEN

SEA. IT GOES, THAT’S ALL.

Bernard Moitessier

I hate storms, but calms

undermine my spirits.

Bernard Moitessier