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

Meet Monique, for the past five years, she and Guirec Soudée have been sailing around the world. Emma Beddington reveals how the French sailor chose to brave the high seas with just one feathered shipmate

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. After Greenland (and an unscheduled 10-day break in France with a perforated appendix, which gave him the chance finally to meet Lauren face-to-face) came the Northwest Passage, an otherworldly place of whales, narwhals and midnight sun. I thought Lauren was on board.” The rest of the journey took in Canada (and that encounter with customs: after some impassioned pleading he was released and allowed to keep Monique), the dangerously stormy 40th and 50th parallels, Antarctica and South Africa, before the slow return to Brittany, dogged by bad weather until the very last day.

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