THE STORY OF A MAN OF REMARKABLE CREATIVITY AND LOVE FOR NATURE
the sea will always remain the sea: always full of puzzles and new lessons
Bernard Moitessier was a compelling writer and one of the most remarkable solitary navigators.
Not only that, he was also a great innovator and his imagined steel boat was an example.
In 1965 he designed an ambitious and never before attempted enterprise: going around the world without a stop with a sailboat, passing through the three Capes (Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin and Cape Horn) and during 1968 he worked at Joshua for the purpose of put him in a position to face the adventure.
How the sunday times became witness of a myth
the GOLDEN GLOBE RACE
Returning to France on a merchant ship as a laborer, he worked out a project to build a steel boat. He had Jean Knocker design the project, following his suggestions, and the industrialist Fricaud made the construction equipment available to him. Thus Joshua was born (in honor of the great navigator Joshua Slocum), a robust ketch that would have faced the enterprise.
Just as he was organizing his ambitious journey, the first solo regatta around the world was launched by The Sunday Times in 1968, the Golden Globe Race, starting from any English port and returning after passing the three heads. Moitessier, hesitant for the risk of downgrading a heroic enterprise to a mere sporting competition, given the stakes he accepted and decided to start from Plymouth on 22 August 1968.
the immense love and respect for nature is priceless
«... I am happy at sea, and perhaps also to save my soul»
After dubbing the three bosses and passing Knox he had left with about a month of advance and had always been first, to the great astonishment of the whole world, he announced that he did not want to return to Europe, thus abandoning the tender and the £ 5,000 prize with practically certain victory.
He then continued the southern route overcoming for the second time the Cape of Good Hope and traveled another half way around the world, without a stop, until reaching June 21, 1969 after traveling 37455 miles (69367 km), Tahiti, in French Polynesia because, as he wrote: «… I am happy at sea, and perhaps also to save my soul».
A replica model of the Joshua
Credit Photo Dominique Charnay
SUSTAINABLE GROWTH OF VENICE AND ITS LAGOON
Give me wind and I will give you miles."
The story of this great adventure is narrated in his most famous book, The Long Route, one of the most popular and most read books in the world, which has made him a model for entire generations of sailors. His relationship with the boat was memorable, Joshua, with whom he had made a pact: “Give me wind and I will give you miles.”
“.. as soon as we lose sight of the coast, the man comes face to face with the own Creator and cannot remain indifferent to the forces of nature that surround him. His body and his spirit, finally free of servitude and earthly needs, can finally find their purity and their integrity in the natural elements that the ancients had chosen as their divinity. Wind, Sun and Sea are the trinity of the God of sailors “
Bernard Moitessier “The long route” (Mursia, 1999)
GET TO KNOW OUR PROJECT OF INSTALLING AN ELECTRIC MOTOR INTO A SAILBOAT IN VENICE!
SOON WE WILL START A CROWFUNDING CAMPAIGN
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help us motivating many other boat owners to adopt electric engines and protect Venice's environment and quietness.
Electric motor sail boat in venice
