Kurun Around the World

Kurun is the name of the authors yacht, in which he made a round the world voyage told in this book. September 19, 1949 he departed Le Croisic in France, returning July 13, 1952 - a voyage of 2 years, 9 months and 18 days. The author is French, a proud Breton.

He departed with another crewman (Dufour), who left him shortly after (Morocco), and he took on a second (Farge). Mutually agreeing to his departure in Tahiti, the author continued on the large majority of his voyage single handed.

Kurun is described (forgive me for any errors in my piecing it together, as the technicalities are completely lost on me) as, a Norwegian type cutter, 33 feet long with a 10 foot 10'' beam, a 1.87 ton cast keel and displacement of 8.5 tons. She is traditional gaff-rigged, with a single mast 30 feet above deck.

His route of landingfalls was: Le Croisic - Vigo (Spain) - Lisbon (Portugal) - Fedala (Morocco) - Canary Isl - Martinique - Panama (for the canal) - Galapagos Isl - Marquesas Isl, Tahiti, Bora Bora (French Polynesia) - Port Moresby (Papua New Guinea) - Cocos Isl - Reunion - Durban then Cape Town (South Africa) - St Helena - Le Croisac.

At most of the landfalls le Toumelin spent between a couple of weeks and a couple of months. There was plenty of maintenance on the yacht - scraping the hull and re-coating, repairing damage, sails to obtain; and also sightseeing and visiting to undertake. Many yacht clubs welcomed him, organising functions and the like, as well as French embassy/consulate staff who did the same. Finally - food, water and other essentials were to be obtained and loaded on board.

Le Toumein writes a well balanced book - there were a couple of chapters of his life before Kurun, a chapter on the design and construction, then in to the voyage. He doesn't write with a lot of repetition (an easy trap for long voyages where one day resembles the next), and comes across as honest with his thoughts and a few failings he owns. There is enough about each destination to get a feel for the place, without turning it into a history book about each country. He describes all of the difficulties and the joys of his trip, he shares some risky situations and explains the doldrums time without labour (he manages to describe a short distance, but long duration leg taking 2 months in a couple of pages).

The only criticism I had, and again, I respect the honesty in the writing, and perhaps in 1950 people cared less, but it seemed in times of boredom (and perhaps hunger) he was pretty reckless with animals he was prepared to kill. Certainly on Galapagos now, he wouldn't have been permitted to kill a seal for oil (to be fair he took all the oil, and the flesh, so it wasn't wasted), but he also shot some birds in order to see them up close! A goat also fell victim after it was accidentally wounded in the crossfire - although ridding Galapagos of goats would have been a good thing. He also took rather a generous catch of fish from the seas around Galapagos, commenting how readily they are caught! At other times in the journey he haphazardly shot at, but was unsuccessful in killing) an albatross, numerous sharks, porpoises and dorados, and at one time a turtle - as much out of frustration and boredom as want of food (although he was very keen on the turtle as food).
But perhaps I am passing a modern day judgement on a man of the 1950s who was on a long solo voyage with a limited diet available to him.

Don't let that put you off, it was a very enjoyable read, and the 300 pages were quicker than other books of a similar vein which were only 200 pages long.

Unfortunately there are no photographs accompanying the book, but thankfully there are good hand drawn maps - one of the world showing the journey in its entirety, and four of five more detailed ones of specific areas showing the route. There are also some drawings of the Kurun - plans sections, sail diagrams etc.

Very enjoyable, and very readable. 4 stars.