The Last Sea Dog tells the story of Jean-Luc Van Den Heede's life and his many sailing adventures.

Jean-Luc has rounded Cape Horn 12 times and completed six solo circumnavigations and currently holds the overall record for a west-about circumnavigation.

He has been on the podium twice in the Vendée Globe single-handed race around the world, coming third in 1990 and second in 1993. More recently he won the Golden Globe Race in 2018/19 at the age of 73. This race was run as a fiftieth anniversary of the 1968 race won by Sir Robin Knox-Johnston.

While the restriction of no assistance and no stopovers were not particularly unusual, the requirements to sail the race as in 1968' with yachts similar to those available in that year and, except for safety equipment, no modern technology allowed. No satellite-based navigation aids were available to the sailors and they had to use a sextant to navigate around the world as Robin had done fifty years previously.

Jean-Luc was born in Amiens, far from the sea, and he became a maths teacher. Nevertheless, he developed a passion for competitive sailing. He is friendly and easy to approach, but he is also a formidable competitor with an abundance of courage and perseverance.

This personal account of his life and the Golden Globe Race is an amazing story of a man who has faced the toughest times and sea and won through.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Foreword to the English Edition Don McIntyre

Foreword to the English Edition Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

Foreword to the French Edition Thomas Coville

1. Knock-down

2. Childhood in solitude

3. The call of the Golden Globe Race

4. Birth of a dual calling

5. Searching for a five-legged sheep

6. From college to my first boat

7. Objective: 240 days

8. On the other side of the horizon

9. Without fear or blame

10. Seven months without setting foot on land

11. The Bardiaux Effect

12. Settling into a routine

13. Roaring Indian & Pacific Oceans

14. The Lucky Star

15. Strange stopover

16. Confessions, Conviction 1

17. Twelfth Cape Horn

18. Confessions, Convictions 2

19. Endless rise

20. Victory

21. And now