All Alone in the World
124 days in hell: the Vendée Globe

The story of an incredible interior journey.
“I had only one fear – not reaching the end. It was a victory over myself.”

“I am fifty two years old and I have five children and a boat that I travelled around the world in. To take part in the Vendée Globe adventure I had to give up everything, make a complete sacrifice and sell all my possessions.  Now I don’t own anything, I have no career nor home to go back to. But I may well have seized the most precious thing of all: my liberty.

From the Atlantic to the South Seas I didn’t overtake many people, but I pushed myself further every day, every night, every hour and nearly every minute. “He won’t get passed the Equator…” declared the optimists. In fact I crossed it twice, in both directions. And also the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, and Cape Horn, this legendary rock where so many sailors have been swallowed up along with their dreams. Mine survived.  I finally know what has become of the child that swore to breach injustice and to astonish his family. From up above I am sure my father, with whom things were so difficult in my younger years, was looking down on me. Perhaps he was even surprised…”

Sébastien Destremau’s book is not the story of a race, it is the story of a life. Eighteenth and last to cross the finish line in Sables-d’Olonne on March 11 2017, he who had never participated in a solo race has triumphed in a tremendous victory over himself.