Anyone who has not read “La Longue Route” by Bernard Moitessier cannot imagine the enthusiasm that has taken hold of thousands of young people for sailing while reading it.. Three years after the events of May 1968 who saw youth violently reject the order established by their parents, this founding book — published by Arthaud editions — comes at the right time to open a door of freedom to the open sea. The time has come for “the big departure and life on the water”. For my part this book, discovered in 1973, was the trigger for my career in boating, started the same year with an internship in Ireland at the Glénans Nautical Center.
In 2025, Stéphane Melchior, Younn Locard and Joal Grange bring Moitessier’s journey to life in a superb comic book album, a treat for young people 7 down to 117 years old !
The screenwriter traces the introspective journey of the navigator through an interior dialogue which gives a very realistic life to the images, and the designer illustrates with a very beautiful pencil – colored by their accomplice Joal Grange – what the author experienced during his long and perilous journey around the world. Realistic, often dreamlike, the album revisits both the author's maritime journey and his slow inner journey.
The original edition of 1971
The Long Road was described as :
The mythical adventure of a sailor in search of absolute freedom. March, the 22 August 1968, Bernard Moitessier and his boat Joshua set off in the first solo, non-stop sailing race around the world. Over the months, loneliness, calms and storms harm or exalt the body and morale of the navigator. Between skies and seas, the sporting feat gradually transforms into an inner journey. Then this crazy question arises : Does he want to return to the society of men? ? "
In the original edition, we can read on the 4th cover :
The Long Road, it's a song, a poem to the sea, where the man, his boat, the elements penetrate each other and vibrate in unison”
In our age of GPS, from Starlink, and all the other gadgets of modern boating, it is perhaps not useless to turn to these pioneers – Moitessier, Slocum, Gerbault, and so on – whose footsteps we are trying to follow a few decades later.
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341 pages
Editions Gallimard
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Other titles in the section Lectures marines
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Don't wait until you're ready to go, it will be too late.
The perception of the world by the traveler is completely different from that perceived by the sedentary. By his advancement, the traveler distorts the world. As the sailboat distorts the wind as it approaches, by his simple presence. Time, space, the affects, nothing is comparable.
If you don't feel it obviously, is that you are a sedentary person on the move, you go sightseeing, you are not a traveler, not a nomad.
This distortion, it's the journey.
The journey , is to commit
Travel is getting naked and putting one foot in front of the other.
Traveling in armor means not being able to perceive the thousand things that will guide you.
Travel is wonderful movement
There were those who were published,
Or even already sponsored, like Moitessier, almost become a guru...
Fortunately, the techniques have been developed, and that not all his admirers have lost ALL their boats like this “great sailor”…
j’ was one of these enthusiasts …n’ don't be afraid to leave ! Because the Earth is Round and we can always return to our starting point !