French solo sailor Guirec Soudée is
continuing his high latitudes adventures
with Monique, the little red hen. The
25-year-old from Brittany bought his
sailing companion in 2014 and they have
been cruising ever since in his 31ft steel
cutter Yvinec, going to the Caribbean,
then Greenland, where the pair were
overwintered in ice for 130 days before
transiting the North West Passage (in 32
days and 30 eggs, says Soudée).
Guirec and Monique then headed
south to San Francisco and onwards in a
two-month non-stop leg of 7,000 miles
to Antarctica. In late February they
passed Cape Horn.Monique may well be the first hen to
round the Horn since the days of the big
square rigged sail traders, when such
voyages featured a chicken in a stew.
Soudée is one of a new wave of
millennials taking to bluewater and
adventure sailing and making their living
from it. His voyages have already given
rise to a children’s book, and his legion
of followers have made him famous in
France. Soudée earns steady living from
donations for viewing his videos through
the fund-me platform Patreon. It’s a
model used by an increasing number of
younger cruisers, and we will be looking
at how this works in a feature on how to
get paid to go sailing next month.
Follow at http://www.guirecsoudee.comRound the Horn with a French hen
Soudée and
Monique have
been cruising for
four yearson the wind