Sometimes life isn't fair. For five years, a young Breton man achieves something extraordinary: he sails to the Caribbean on an old steel ship called "Yvinec", then northwards along the US East Coast, freezes in Greenland, masters the Northwest Passage, crosses the Pacific to the south, rounds Cape Horn and returns home after three trips across the Atlantic - yet it is not the 26-year-old skipper who is celebrated for his trip, but his onboard hen Monique.
A journey with chicken - that sounds like a PR coup and a staged story. But the opposite is the case: Guirec Soudée never planned it that way, it just happened.
During a visit to his family's island off the coast of Brittany, Soudée describes the background to his adventurous story, and the story is certainly adventurous.
The young man is powerfully drawn to the sea. He leaves school without a degree and prefers to travel the world to earn enough money for a boat by doing all kinds of menial jobs. His goal is a journey that appeals to him more than anything else: to the sea, for years on end. But he knows nothing about sailing. Nor does he know anything about buying a boat. The old steel boat he buys leaks like a sieve. He repairs it as best he can and sets off - single-handed.
On the way, he realises that a companion would be nice, so Soudée buys a hen during a stopover in Tenerife. "If she's annoying, I can always eat her," he says to himself, but their relationship develops in a completely different direction. Animal and owner survive many an adventure together, and sometimes this takes on bizarre forms. For example, when Soudée builds a sledge in the Arctic ice and knits his Monique a jumper so that they can go on land expeditions together.
The young skipper reports on his trip in various online media, such as Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. And the number of his friends and followers is growing rapidly. Tens of thousands follow his journey and some of his videos are clicked millions of times. However, it's not primarily the skipper's amazing travel experiences that people are interested in, but rather the question: What is Monique actually doing?
A YACHT author visited the strange couple in their Breton homeland. You can read about what she experienced and learnt there in YACHT 19/2019. The magazine is now available in stores, in the DK shop or directly here digitally!
