Emerging jubilant from a cold final night at sea Chinese skipper Jingkun Xu fulfilled a goal which has possessed him for many years when he crossed the finish line of the 10th edition of the Vendée Globe this Tuesday morning at 0708 hrs. His elapsed time for the race is 99 days 20 hours and 06 minutes. As well as being the first Chinese skipper to complete the Vendée Globe, he is also the 100th sailor to complete the famous solo non stop race around the world.
Visibly exhausted but full of the joy of having accomplished an extraordinary feat, making history as the first Chinese skipper ever to start and to finish the legendary solo non stop race, from a field of accomplished, talented sailors his is a truly remarkable and inspiring achievement for a mountain boy who lost his left arm at the age of 12 and had to go to an internet café to learn what sailing was before falling in love with the ocean and its many challenges. Since his accident he has sought to prove to others what can be achieved by sharing a vision and sheer determination.
His journey from the remote hills of Shangdong where he was a talented track and field athlete – who used to run 10kms each way to and from school – through Paralympic sailing which gave him a taste of international travel and competition in the USA to sailing solo around the seas of China in 2012 in a 24ft boat He sailed from Qingdao to Dandong City in Liaoning Province and Yongxing Island in the south, setting a world record for “the world’s first one-armed sailor to circumnavigate the oceans of China autonomously”.
Inspired by the tales of Ellen MacArthur he came with no French and no English and raced the 2015 Mini Transat race. At home he set up a successful, popular sailing school and sailed around the world on a cruising catamaran with his wife. They moved to France and bought an IMOCA to pursue the Vendée Globe dream. He spent long hours, many, many days and nights learning about the IMOCA, living on board in Port-la-Foret for a time, becoming largely self taught and doing all his maintenance and prep work on the boat himself as he had no money and with no French found it near impossible to get help at first.
3 sailors remain in the race, and they are all approaching the Azores with just over 300 nm separating them.
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