1936-38 the Frenchman Louis Bernicot sailed around the world alone in his Yacht Anahita. As his idol Joshua Slocum 40 years earlier, he went from East to West, through the Magellan Strait, the South Pacific and around the Cape of Good Hope. Quite an achievement in a time when there were no GPS, no autopilots and no weather faxes.

Bernicot was not an easy personality. Like Slocum he was a previous merchant marine captain - two early retirees sharing the same occupation. But if you compare the two accounts, you will find huge differences: While Slocum reports great episodes, Bernicots book reads like a dry technical description of what he did. While Slocum had fun in all the ports of call, Bernicot hurried on after a few days. Being a professional seaman Bernicot had no sympathy with amateur sailors such as Alain Gerbault who was the first frenchman to round the world. But what motivated a father of three children to sail alone across the oceans at the age of fifty?

Like her owner, Anahita was a yacht of character. Bernicot had it custom built for his project without telling the architect of his plans. She was not beautiful, really, but fully seaworthy. Many details, including the ugly doghouse, made her ideal for single-handed sailing. Unfortunately, Anahita also had a few problems. The hard rudder was particularly painful - we should have been warned. After Bernicot's dead, his widow sold the yacht. It is currently waiting in Brittany for an urgently needed restauration.

So, the name our yacht is a reference to Bernicot's Anahita. But where does it come from? Bernicot pretends that it is the name of a caledonian goddess of the seas. According to our research, it comes from the Middle East. She was a worshiped as goddess of water and fertility. In Iran there are some archeological sites of temples of Anahita. See an article in the Persian Journal.

Sources: La croisière d'Anahita (Louis Bernicot, Voiles Gallimard, 2002); Sailing Alone Around the World (Joshua Slocum, Adlard Coles Nautical, 1996), Voiles & Voiliers (March 2002)