The Berque Twins

The Berque brothers, navigators-discoverers of the 21st century.

Extreme adventurers, artists, surfers, photographers, musicians, surfboard shapers, brilliant micro-boat designers, writers…

For some sea lovers, the Berque twins evoke sailing prowess, determination and oceanic crossroads like no other.

However, their fame is non existent: only a privileged few enjoy their extraterrestrial adventures.

Yet they have never stopped creating, designing, editing and filming: their photos, articles, films, books and ongoing presence on the Internet bear generous witness to everything they have accomplished over the past 50 years.

It’s a double destiny of intrepid dreamers, rebellious hermits and sensitive matheads retreating from the civilized world.

These unclassifiable, wild pioneers have had the greatest difficulty in publicizing their work and their singular path.
Their story, far from being confined to the high seas, is that of genial and irreducible French non-conformists.

The aim of this film is to introduce you to their world.

An unknown epic of modern times.

A tale outside space and time, to be shared with everyone, including ordinary landlubbers…

A life for two. Three Atlantic crossings, as singular as they are beautiful, as dangerous as they are timeless, against all the trends of modern navigation, not to say against all reasonableness.

Four expeditions, from the most improvised and rock’n’roll to the most mastered and avant-garde.

Five boats. All dreamed up, thought out, designed and built by their own hands. The first sculpted like a surfboard, drawn on the fly.

The next designed on an antique school calculator, using personal mathematical programs.

The third, with plans made on a computer, but devoid of any modern technology.

Leaving. Without any instruments, not even a compass, a sextant or a map. No lifeboat, no assistance, no radio, no distress beacon. No watch.

These unusual personalities, these playboys with their well-formed heads, have briefly appeared on the french major TF1 TV news and a few others. They appeared on national french TV sea magazine Thalassa, and earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for their extraordinary seafaring skills.

Emmanuel and Maximilien Berque, however brilliant and vibrant they may be, have remained in the shadows, not to say in complete obscurity.

It’s in the Landes, far from the major sea men ports of Brittany, Loire-Atlantique or the Mediterranean coast, that we find their tracks.

Science + white coats = surfing

The last of the Berque siblings, their childhood followed the family itinerary, from Morocco to Lebanon via Egypt. It was marked by difficulties and school phobia; dunces but clever, they had problems adapting to life on the mainland when they arrived in Paris.

They hate their new environment, dreaming only of one thing: their next vacation with their grandmother, in Contis in the Landes region, where they rediscover the vast spaces of their early childhood: the sand and the ocean, their favorite playgrounds.

After a complicated start, their studies take a different turn in adolescence. The twins were separated and sent to boarding school, where they adopted a rigorous discipline orchestrated under the auspices of their father, Jacques Berque.

This illustrious intellectual was a great orientalist, specialist in Arabic, sociologist and professor at the Collège de France.

They became top of the class, and were torn in their studies between science and math, arts and sports.

They draw, play music and cook with their mother. She introduced them to photography in their early teens, and they were inspired and admiring of her remarkable artistic work.

Their quality education paid off. With an aptitude for the sciences in particular, they are spoilt for choice when it comes to student life.

“They don’t want anything to do with making money” Jacques Berque

Maximilien, after Maths sup and film studies at the prestigious ENS Louis-Lumière, works as a cameraman. A golden opportunity presents itself, and he becomes an extreme diver at Comex. At the legendary underwater engineering company, he works on offshore oil platforms, earns a lot of money and lives between decompression chambers, the North Sea, the Persian Gulf and, of course, the Landes. For his skills in the ocean depths, he was selected for the world record dive to -510 m for the Janus IV operation.

Emmanuel studied mathematics, physics, biology and geology at the Orsay Faculty of Science, then in Bordeaux, where he became an oenologist. He then moved to Corsica, where he managed the vinification department of a wine cooperative.

For the twins in the early 70s, the sirens – both figurative and literal… are many.

Handsome, jack-of-all-trades, musicians, cultured and cool, social and professional success was there for the taking. But they don’t care.

The twins have only one goal: to keep their future free and enjoy life.

Start a business? Spend your life working to buy a sofa or a nice car? What’s the point? A car that doesn’t even run on sand – unlike a battered old 2CV with deflated tires… Rather than follow a set path, the twins take a radical step downhill.

They drop everything to surf and wait for the perfect wave…

Sea, sex, and surf 

The origins of this surfing monomania can be traced back to 1966, when they watched the film The Endless Summer in a cinema on the Champs-Elysées. They dreamed of this way of life, a stark contrast to the dullness of Paris and their mind breaking baccalauréat.

After becoming salaried employees, their vacations devoted almost exclusively to surfing gave them a sense of plenitude and luxury they couldn’t find elsewhere, and certainly not in their daily working waging lives.

So they started living like hermits, or beach bums, literally on the beach, doing odd jobs and selling the few surfboards they made. Spending the rest of their time in the water, surfing, all the time, as much as possible

Adventures, road-trips, encounters, all kinds of pleasures, and a few mishaps – one of which, as recounted in their book, is the looting of a shipwreck. This incident landed them in police custody, and caused them a great deal of trouble.
Also, a lot of photos and writing articles: they can claim the title of France’s first surf photojournalists.

They became emblematic – and controversial – figures in their region, and enjoyed the natural paradise of the Landes coast for ten years.

This freedom at all costs was to marginalize them, and gradually plunge them into increasingly extreme poverty.

By waiting too long for the perfect wave, and therefore working as little as possible, they have become very poor, and live very meagerly, making it impossible for them to do photography properly. Buying the right tools to work or create, and even inviting their friends to dinner is out of their reach!

To get out of this cul-de-sac, they decide to climb back up the social ladder, but “from the top, not the bottom”.

So they decide:

“We’re going to make a unique adventure film! We’re going to cross the ocean like no one has ever done in history, and film it in Happening mode… it’ll make a LIVE film like no one has ever made! It’ll put us out of our misery!
We’ll finally be able to do film and photography again, write articles and do a book and make stuff!”

In the 70s, to stand out in the line of the great marine epics, you have to know how to innovate.
You had to be able to impress the world after, for example, Ernest Shackleton’s James Caird voyage to Elephant Island, Hannes Lindemann’s Atlantic crossing, Alain Bombard’s Atlantic crossing, or even Oskar Speck’s kayak voyage from Germany to Australia.
To imagine entering this exclusive circle is a challenge in itself.

Years of study and separations haven’t change anything: they live like a two-headed hydra, their thoughts echoing and amplifying each other, living in symbiosis. Their audacity, fueled by their rivalry, gives them an irrepressible taste for the impossible.

A twin pact takes shape, a childhood dream come true. The dream of crossing the Atlantic by boat, as close as possible to the discoverers and seafaring heroes they have always admired, even though they have never sailed.

Perhaps it’s their mother who inspired their quest for beauty and experimentation. Or is it a counterpoint to their father’s classic career? Whatever the explanation, it’s a true call of the sea that grows, their first artistic masterpiece needs to emerge from all this chaotic flower power.

The Atlantic should no longer be their playground, but their goal. They learn to sail in the Mediterranean on a friend’s boat, a journey that takes them as far as Saudi Arabia.

After testing the Hobie 18 for a magazine, one of the small pleasure catamarans that have been all the rage since the early 1970s, they ask Hobart Alter for a sponsorship contract for a crossing for two.

The founder of Hobie Cat, no doubt flabbergasted by the twins’ audacity, not to say the insanity of their project, ignored their proposal.

Perhaps the twins arrived too soon, too inexperienced.

Eight years later, in 1986, Laurent Bourgnon and Fred Giraldi did make the crossing on this craft, and were welcomed as heroes in Pointe-à-Pitre by Route du Rhum winner Philippe Poupon…

After Hobart Alter’s refusal, it’s clear that the twins will have to rely on themselves.
In their home, they began building their first boat in the same vein as these mini-catamarans with a full cargo hold. They named it Micromégas, in homage to Voltaire’s book.

Micromégas I, the impossible voyage

They set off south, coasting north of Spain for an entire summer, accompanied by their dog, as a trial run.

For their first real experience of the high seas, the following spring they set out to cross the Bay of Biscay to reach North-West Spain.

Unsuccessful, they had to turn back after breaking their helm. They made a 400 nautical mile loop in the Bay of Biscay. After this Dantean experience, rowing for 4 days on the brink of death, they feel ready. The following summer, it’s time for the big departure.

Don José : — De donde vienen ustedes ?

Emmanuel and Maximilien: – From France, it took us three days from Arcachon!

Don José :- On this boat? But there’s no cabin!”

Carolyn is a friend of the twins from Berlin. With no experience of the sea, she decided to follow them on the tiny craft.

The woman nicknamed “Paresseuse”, who lounged for hours on end on the beaches of Landes, quickly became “Amiral Rouscaille”, and astonished the twins with her mimicry and ease of adaptation to the rhythm of the sea: at the rate she’s going, they’ll soon be triplets, so perfectly does she copy all the Grumms’ attitudes.

They soon reach Cedeira in Spain, some forty kilometers from La Coruña.

They find themselves stuck, and can go no further because of the weather, but they are helped by Don José, owner of a beach and a building where they house their boat. The crew is too short to pass Galicia and reach the Lusitanian coast, but they have gained experience.

After a winter in Berlin, where Carolyn took them to make a little money, they finally rounded Cape Finisterre the following spring.
On their way, they carefully scouted out the surf spots, sailing as close as possible to the ridgelines, taking great risks in these rocky coasts, much to Carolyn’s annoyance.

This first real voyage took place over several seasons, in four attempts, back and forth between the reefs and civilization.

4 attempts, in four years, between the postcard summer sun and the harsh German winter, this journey is in itself a novel in which the twins alternate between the progress of their boat, ecstatic joys and improbable vicissitudes. It dignifies manual labor in all its forms, with Georges Navel-style interior monologues on the condition of the worker.

The story follows the twins’ journey through France, Germany, Morocco and Spain, and the incredible perseverance they displayed in order to finance their expedition and achieve their goals. It began in the offices of Paris Match and the Gamma agency, which advanced them 30,000 francs for a photo report.

In Berlin, they take on the uniform of Monsieur Propre: sweepers, and construction workers to support themselves, they look out of place but work in an orderly, methodical way in huge exhibitors’ lounges, at the very bottom of the ladder.

In Morocco, in swirling Casablanca, the three of them are welcomed like princes by an entire family after a happy encounter in port.
Later, on the coast at Souira Kedima, they meet the young Hassan, a humble fisherman who takes them under his wing.

The story shows the clarity of conscience of twins caught in the vise of their ambition, prey to disillusionment and a dull daily routine, but who continue to see far ahead and following the course of their dream.

Morocco and the sunshine of the Canaries eclipse the cold winter images of working-class life in Northern Europe.

Unfortunately, at the gates of the Atlantic, it was with a heavy heart that they abandoned their crossing project.

Exhausted, discouraged by the immense difficulty, the lack of budget and their broken camera, they learned that Laurent Bourgnon’s Hobie 18 had made a successful crossing. It was all too much…

They abandon Micromégas on the islands.

The twins had to reinvent their dream of a crossing.

Micromégas II, the dream reinvented

Maximilien survived a heart attack at the age of 37, after a day of intense surfing.

In theory, this dramatic health accident, which almost cost him his life, should have put an end to any attempt at an ocean crossing, and sounded like the death knell for this impossible project.

As for Emmanuel, he has had a daughter, Marine, since 1991.

This ordeal and this new responsibility could have prompted the twins to (re)embark on a career in audiovisual media, surfboard shaping, tourism, or one of the other enterprises in vogue at the height of the surf business boom.

But the twins don’t want to give up on their lifelong dream.

Their destiny, they know, is quite different.

Their selflessness, sincerity and dedication to their ideal won them the endorsement of their demanding father. In an ancient relationship of “freely consented authority”, their father will support this project and protect them to a minimum.

Micromégas II, their new boat, will take almost three years of their lives.

Three years of thinking, designing, drawing, sawing, gluing, folding, sanding, nailing, drying, planing and adjusting, plank by plank, an extraordinary jewel.

With the help of the new french welfare RMI, they conscientiously saved up small amounts of money to gradually put the pieces of their puzzle together.

Starting from the handwritten data in Emmanuel’s notebooks, they transcribe into computer code the calculations for their boat’s plans.
Using a Casio FA-10, a kind of large programmable calculator, an ancestor of the PC dating from 1983 – already an antique for its time – they print out everything needed for its construction on this tiny machine.

There was no question of doing things by halves, nor of leaving anything to chance: their technical and scientific knowledge and experience had to count in the creation of their vessel.

Coated with ten coats of fiberglass and varnished by hand, it’s hard, thankless work that puts a strain on the hands. During construction, the bow – the front part of the boat – breaks under the phenomenal stress of glued, bent and folded wood. The twins repair, and reach the end of their tether.

An expedition to the moon on a low-income budget: NASA on a welfare envelope

The journey to the Canaries takes four months.

Once again, they have the most difficult time getting out of the cold sea to reach the port of their great departure.

But this time, they didn’t give up.
Despite their first bitter failure on the high seas, following a monstrous storm during an attempt to reach Madeira, they set off again from Arrecife.

The TV program Thalassa lent them a camera, and filmed their preparations. With the exception of Quiksilver, who provided them with clothing, they sailed away on April 26, 1995, without any sponsors, patrons or partnerships.

Pelagic solitude.
A 300-franc sextant and a compass.
No GPS beacon, no assistance, no reward at the end other than that of accomplishment: aboard this boat weighing 400 kg and 4 meters long, they’re going to cover 11,000 km.
37 epic days in ocean space, filmed and commented on with persistence, disbelief, joy and sorrow.

On arrival, TF1 will take a few images of their journey in the Caribbean, where they will regain their strength.

The feat is behind them, the emotions, the images engraved in memory and on film, the twins have become the equals of the greatest captains in history.

But without a penny in their pockets, they have to go back to being simple sailors, mopping the floor on yachts to earn the right to fly back to France.

They abandon their masterpiece on a roadstead near Miami.

Stolen, destroyed, hidden, sunk, saved, kept somewhere? The fate of this magnificent boat remains a mystery.
On their website, more than twenty-five years later, you’ll still find this wanted notice:

“We are calling on you if you know of anyone near Fort Lauderdale, Florida who might be able to provide information or lead an investigation to trace Micromégas II and consider her possible repatriation…”

Micromégas III

Proud and esteemed by all those close to them, the twins have succeeded in their gamble, and this convinces them that they definitely don’t belong on dry land.

The media coverage left something to be desired, and they were dissatisfied with the television film of their crossing.

They did it again seven years later, having managed to obtain an advance to write a book. And this time, they made an auteur film.

Micromégas III is an even smaller nutshell: it’s a 300 kg outrigger micro-pirogue inspired by the Polynesians that will serve as their transatlantic vessel. It’s the quintessence of the twins’ engineering concept, an ancient high-tech toy. Micromégas II, on the other hand, looks like an ocean liner, with its two-seater cabin.

“The prao is a nod to the Maoris. The one-third rigging is a nod to the Bretons. It’s all about doing better than the Bretons and the Maoris.”

They would spend almost 4 weeks sometimes lying on top of each other in a semi-wet space barely wider than a bobsleigh. Or sitting a few centimetres from the water on a net, as on Micromégas I.

They don’t know it yet, but they’ll come very close to going crazy on this wooden mackerel edge. The only concession to modernity is an Argos beacon. Just in case…

Next to this, the Kon-Tiki is a Costa Cruises ship!

“Huis Clos sous les Etoiles”, the epic film of their second Atlantic crossing

What document gives such a close account of such a sporting, human and technical feat?
Who else but twins would not have torn each other apart in the most complicated moments, lost in the middle of the ocean, with no contact with the outside world, thirsty, scared, exhausted, on edge?

Giving everyone the chance to climb aboard this craft at the very edge of the human universe, “Huis-clos sous les étoiles” is 59 minutes of the most striking and moving footage ever filmed.

It’s the most impossible of reports, an epic and minimalist tale, Everest, or rather the marine K2 if you consider the difficulty and the risks.

Scrupulously respecting the chronological sequence of the rushes, it’s an unedited logbook, totally raw, with no commentary, no music, breathtaking.

Unscripted, but thought out and dreamed up, gestating in the twins’ imaginations for almost twenty years, it is unequalled in its power and authenticity, both in the breathless, genial, funny, moving and intense words, and in the unreal, irrational images. Madness mixed with the feeling of fulfilling one’s destiny, doubting everything and nothing.
For the twins, it’s a question of “accepting to lose oneself, in order to better find oneself”, at least that’s what philosopher and writer Sonia Branglidor thought in her poem-tribute to the Berque brothers.

Mike Horn or Bear Grills would agree: with just 49 liters of water, 65 cans of sardines, 4kg of powdered milk, 2kg of sugar, Tabasco and 8kg of gofio, the grilled flour used by Canarian fishermen, this is a record crossing.

The twins are anxious, unsure of their position, unable to see the stars for nights on end to locate themselves under the sky. They move forward at full speed, or stagnate without knowing where they are, tossed about by the immense waves and lapping waves.

In the end, it was through sheer effort and the limits of reason and physical strength that they succeeded in their crossing, reaching their destination of La Désirade with perfect precision. A dream voyage.

A journey that would literally cost them the skin off their backs, gnawed by the salt’s gnawing tongue and rubbing on the ropes for 27 days.

Here too, despite their incredible performance, they hardly capitalized, and remained in relative anonymity in the years that followed, jostled only by a few breakthroughs, interviews, prizes, awards and presentations of their film, a staggering testimony to their prowess.

Now in their fifties, and with none of the spin-offs they’d hoped for… what could they do?

Follow the road to the stars, whatever the cost

Micromégas IV was built in 2006. It’s a splendid wooden Doris, a 7.10m flat-bottomed boat. But she won’t be crossing the Atlantic.

Micromégas IV would quickly have become too dangerous downwind, as we risked taking on too much water on the beam in vicious seas.

Our aesthetic research went too far, and we tried too hard to imitate old dories, which were mainly designed for rowing, not sailing!

August 11, 2008, on the twins’ blog “

This boat will only be sailed for a short time, and is carefully sheltered, waiting to be sold to anyone interested.

To exist is to insist? In any case, three’s a crowd…

Their next adventure would be synonymous with speed, so they built a modern miniature multihull. A catamaran without draft, keel or centerboard.

Micromégas V, in fiberglass, is heavier and larger than Micromégas III.

It’s also noisier, with the resonance of the water and the lapping more intense. This makes what little sleep they can find even more precarious, and at 60 years of age, this is more keenly felt.

The M5 is a very brave and beautiful little fast boat which fulfilled its contract and put in a very fine performance.

But we hadn’t anticipated that her speed would create unbearable, appalling and terrifying noise and movement inside the hulls.”

Rather at ease with computer tools – modern ones this time – they are this time followed on Facebook by the burgeoning community of subscribers to their pages.
They update their crossing on their blog, and are in constant contact with the whole world via SMS and satellite phone.

Setting out once again from the Canaries, they arrived in Barbados on February 1, 2011, making another 27-day crossing.

At a time when social networks were emerging, before the widespread adoption of smartphones, the twins were in some ways too far ahead of their time, and the reach of their publications would remain confidential in relation to the feat they had once again accomplished.

Media coverage? Just a few interviews: without a press attaché or sponsor, it’s once again mission impossible to make their incredible story known and recognized.

The twins also feel very differently about this crossing, having the impression of having sailed with their heads in the sand, without really seeing or feeling the ocean because of the instrument assistance.

“Devenir immortel, et puis, mourir” Become immortal, then die

Maximilien passed away on August 10, 2021.

His heart caught up with him, and after his first “death” at the age of 37, this time he battened down the hatches for good.

“Grompf”, now quite alone, takes the helm and does his utmost to tell their twin stories: Emmanuel calls himself “ju-man”, a french play of words with the singular of twins. He makes the rounds of the festivals that invite him, and a certain buzz around their legend seems to be building.

Like the great explorers, they have extended the frontiers of what is possible, and from one voyage to the next, they have inspired a new generation of sailors. They exude the infinite plenitude of aliens emerging from their space-time voyage.

They kept their own photo diaries and filmed their odysseys, image professionals that they are.

With extraordinary talent, they inscribed in eternity their moments of bliss, rare moments that usually border on the inexpressible. Here, they are palpable, and accessible to all on video. They have captured their humor and moods, and paid tribute to the beauty of the ocean to which they have given their lives.

They themselves have told their story in a book which is out today, in a new version: “Les Mutins de Micromégas”, written by Emmanuel.

Without sponsors, fame or media interest, they remained true to their principles and succeeded three times in their odyssey as surfers and wolves of the sea.

In their films, the Berque brothers leave a lasting impression on the mind in a way that few human stories can. Bathed in the sublime light of the Caribbean, or in the pitch darkness of endless storms, lost without any bearings, the twins reveal themselves to the world.

Their destiny, their humility, and the extreme destitution of their expeditions contrast with the modernity and gargantuan opulence of the world of contemporary regattas.

Among modern adventurers, who has both voluntarily and involuntarily accustomed themselves to being hungry on land, doubting everything including their own sanity, for the beauty and uniqueness of an exploit? Who has set themselves the same crazy goals for twenty years, continuing to believe in them, even while working thousands of kilometers from the ocean, suffering scathing failures, ignored, not to say mocked?

Who, after immeasurable exploits, has finally succeeded only to find solitude, the fear of death and oblivion as his only companions?

They sought the unattainable at the end of their garden. They voluntarily chose the path of the most terrible difficulty, the inextinguishable thirst in the middle of the Atlantic, the most extreme minimalism for the greatness of their gesture. Their determination to go all the way has raised them to the ranks of a rare and dangerous class, that of the discoverers. To reduce the boat, to reduce the means, to reduce the certainties, to enlarge the space and the unknown. And to make their crossing titanic, Micromégas.

Freedom, uncompromising, elusive, painful and transformative, leading to ecstasy and infinite clarity of consciousness.

The freedom that makes life absolutely magical when the clouds dissipate: this is what the twins have always wanted; this is what transpires from their extraordinary life journey.

Akira Aubert

Chrolonogy

1950 Born in Imintanout, Morocco
1963 Boarding school in Saint Martin de France, Val d’Oise
1970–75 Scientific studies, Max diver at Comex, Emmanuel oenologist
1979 First boat trip to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
1980 Testing the Hobie cat 18
1982–1986 Micromégas 1 – Sweepers in Berlin – journey to Morocco and the Canaries
1993 Micromégas II
1996 First Atlantic crossing in 37 days
2003 Micromégas III, second crossing in 27 days
2004 Release of the film Huis Clos sous les étoiles
2006 Micromégas IV
2011 Micromégas V, third crossing in 27 days
2021 Death of Maximilien
2022 Publication of Les Mutins de Micromégas