A man who sailed round the world with a chicken (2019)

Summary

At the tip of Brittany’s wild, wet Côtes-d’Armor peninsula is the village of Plougrescant. Beyond that, butting right out into the sea, lies Yvinec island, a tiny outcrop intermittently accessible depending on tides via a rock-studded expanse of dunes and seaweed. To get there I have taken two planes, a train and a puzzling automobile. It has been an epic journey, but I can’t possibly say that to Guirec Soudée when he picks me up for the last leg in his 4x4. I may have got lost in a Brest industrial estate at midnight, unable to make the hire car headlights work, but the 26-year-old Breton sailed around the world solo for five years. During that time he was trapped in Arctic ice for 130 days, survived 15m waves, nearly capsized repeatedly, was imprisoned briefly by Canadian coastguards and became the youngest sailor to navigate the formidable Northwest Passage between the Pacific and the Atlantic solo. Well, I say solo. Sole human. He was accompanied by a chicken, a Rhode Island Red named Monique.I said to myself, ‘If she annoys me, I can always eat her.’ It feels weird to say that now! We formed a real bondFrom January 2014 to their return to Brittany in December 2018, the pair covered 45,000 miles. They crossed the Atlantic, travelled to the North and South Poles, across to Cape Horn, back to the Caribbean and home, punctuated by stops to repair the boat, wait out the weather, or earn money. Every adventure, encounter and disaster (there were plenty of all three) was recorded in jaw-dropping pictures and funny videos on their increasingly popular social media accounts (they now have 125k Facebook and 42.8k Instagram followers).That was where I discovered – and fell hard for – the pair. A handsome, fresh-faced young adventurer and his stoic brown hen on their plucky little boat felt like a gift: an uncomplicated shot of sunshine in a dark time. Their story is an internet-age Boy’s Own adventure: Guirec paddleboarded through icebergs, met polar bears, caught huge fi...