Book Locker: An Atalaya for Gerry Roufs, Memory Notebook
January 8, 2026
by Michèle Cartier, updated edition eBook, Bookelis, 2025.
“An Atalaya for Gerry Roufs,” by Michèle Cartier, the companion of the sailor who disappeared at sea in 1997, during the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race recounts the key moments of the long and arduous search for Gerry’s body following his tragic and widely known shipwreck.
In my relentless quest, which lasted more than two years, I was forced to overcome a considerable number of obstacles and prejudices. With fellow sailors, I founded the association Sur la route de Gerry Roufs in order to continue the research until satisfactory results were achieved.
After conducting extensive searches to find Gerry and his sailboat—after receiving ransom demands, being accused of acts of piracy, and enduring countless other ordeals—it was ultimately the Chilean naval air force that found the shattered boat on the west coast of Patagonia, beached on the Atalaya Islands on August 24, 1998, after it had first been spotted by a cargo ship drifting upside down in the South Pacific on July 16, 1997.
I retrace the journey by traveling all the way to the remote southern reaches of Chile, into the harsh lands evoked by Chilean writers Luis Sepúlveda and Francisco Coloane, without the mystery surrounding his disappearance being fully resolved at that time.
The Return of Gerry Roufs, the wandering Dutchman A story of navigation by sight
by Michèle Cartier, eBook,Bookelis 2025.
On January 7, 1997, my partner, the Canadian sailor Gerry Roufs, disappeared at sea during the Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race. After conducting extensive searches to find Gerry and his sailboat–after receiving ransom demands, being accused of acts of piracy, and enduring countless other ordeals–it was ultimately the Chilean naval air force that found the shattered boat on the west coast of Patagonia, beached on the Atalaya Islands on August 24, 1998, after it had first been spotted by a cargo ship drifting upside down in the South Pacific on July 16, 1997.
A complex mourning process began and held me captive for many years. My mind had to answer very grounded questions, while my heart needed to make peace with a man said to have perished at sea. Where did Gerry die? Where is Gerry, dead?
Dreams, memories — it took me a long time to understand and articulate the emotional stakes of a grief I had believed impossible. Then one day, when I returned to the places haunted by the past, a path dotted with luminous markers opened before my eyes. By choosing to follow it deliberately, it guided me toward the answers I had long hoped for, and I finally found peace of mind.
And what if it was Gerry who returned, in a visible form, to set me free?
You can buy the books here at the online Bookelis library
