Annals of Adventure–Around the Globe, Non-Stop…the Wrong Way!: There is an easy way to sail around the world and a very, very hard way. The easy way is to go from west to east, which puts the prevailing winds in the Southern Ocean–at the bottom of the globe–behind you. So you are mostly enjoying a fast, sometimes hairy, sometimes thrilling, downwind sleigh ride for about 10,000 of the 25,000 mile voyage. The hard, hard way–the way of stubborn, masochistic sailors–is to sail west to east, against the prevailing winds, into the teeth of storms, spending months and months beating into the wind, a cold, wet, existence in which every mile is a struggle. Not surprisingly, only 4 sailors in history have done the non-stop, wrong-way route. The first was an Englishman named Chay Blyth, who inaugurated the east to west misery-fest in 1970. He made the trip in 292 days and was forever after known as “Wrong Way Chay.” Three subsequent sailing iconoclasts have lowered the time to 151 days. And today a Frenchman named Jean-Luc Van Den Heede (popularly known as VDH) set out to become the fifth. VDH is a stubborn guy. This is not his first attempt on the Wrong-Way Record. It is his FOURTH, and his weapon of choice is a 75-foot aluminum cutter named “Adrien.” In 1999, in his first attempt, in a 60-footer, VDH hit an underwater object past Cape Horn, and barely made it to port in Chile. In 2001, in the new “Adrien,” VDH was done in by Cape Horn again–a storm started to work the keel off. And just last year, after 64 days at sea–18 days ahead of the record and nearing Australia–VDH lost his mast. A lesser mortal might give up, concluding that Neptune has it in for him. Not VDH. He’s off again, a model of determination and philosophical equanimity. This time, I bet he makes it. We’ll let you know how he’s getting on……



Stubborn Old Man: “Je refuse! West to East is for sissies….”