The Last Horizon

Inside the World’s Most Dangerous Solo Race Around the Globe

One boat. One sailor. Zero help.

Welcome to the Vendée Globe—the deadliest, most awe-inspiring endurance challenge on Earth that almost no American has heard of.

In The Last Horizon, acclaimed storyteller Julien Peltier takes readers inside the world of the solo, nonstop, around-the-world race that pushes human limits further than Everest, spaceflight, or the Ironman ever could.

Crossing 24,000 miles of frozen oceans and hurricane latitudes, the Vendée Globe is a battle fought alone—against storms the size of skyscrapers, rogue waves that erase satellite signals, and an isolation so deep astronauts would call it extreme.

This is the definitive narrative history of the race:

• The birth of an impossible idea in the 1980s

• The icons who shaped its legend

• The shipwrecks and disappearances that haunt the Southern Ocean

• The modern engineering arms race of foiling IMOCA 60s

• The miracle rescue that captured the world in 2020

• And the future of exploration in an age of AI, climate change, and shrinking frontiers

Blending real survival stories with cutting-edge science, The Last Horizon captures what drives a select few to abandon the world they know and chase a line where the sky meets the sea—alone.

Perfect for readers of:

The Perfect Storm, Endurance, Into Thin Air, The Long Way, The Impossible First, and anyone drawn to true adventure, human resilience, and exploration at the edges of the map.

If you think you know adventure—think again. The greatest race on Earth has been hiding in plain sight.