Xu Jingkun caught a 20-kilogram tuna. Photo courtesy of interviewees
On June 5, 2020, in the vast Atlantic Ocean, a lonely boat.
On his catamaran, Xu Jingkun holding a 20-kilogram tuna was happy and content.
"After 35 days at sea, the meat in the last freezer on the ship was gone, and the freezer was filled again this time. Thanks to the North Atlantic for the gift." Xu Jingkun lamented.
His satisfaction seemed to come easily. A fish, a freezer is enough.
But what pleased him was obviously not just this fish.
Xu Jingkun completed the souvenir around the world. Photo courtesy of interviewees
63,000 kilometers of global memory
He regarded the 20-kilogram tuna as "the gods sent a gift of victory around the world."
Before receiving the "gift", Xu Jingkun took his wife Ajiu and his Qingdao Dream Catamaran to go back to the northern hemisphere from the southern hemisphere after a 35-day continuous voyage to the Azores and completed a three-year global voyage , His trajectory has also drawn an entire circle on the earth.
Since officially sailing from Turkey in June 2017, Xu Jingkun crossed the Mediterranean Sea, Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Panama Canal, crossed the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, and bypassed the Cape of Good Hope in Africa. In June 2020, he returned to the starting point of the nautical route of Peking University, Portugal .
For three full years, with five equator crossings and a range of 34,000 nautical miles (63,000 kilometers), Xu Jingkun set China's first record of sailing around the world on a catamaran.
Xu Jingkun celebrated the victory of sailing around the world. Photo courtesy of interviewees
"I have thought about it countless times before, when I finish this moment one day, will I cry, or jump into the ocean, and sprinkle a bottle of champagne on my body. But when I really arrived in Azores, it was actually very calm. After 35 days of gusty winds, the sea conditions finally calmed down when I arrived in Azores, like my mood." Xu Jingkun recalled how his dream came true.
The dream came true in one moment, and Xu Jingkun spent 3 years for this moment. To spread out the memory of these three years, it is 63,000 kilometers.
All numbers indicate that this is destined to be a memory full of countless wonderful experiences and adventures.
However, when inevitably asked about the most unforgettable experience of drifting all the way, Xu Jingkun's answer was not as exciting as others expected:
Grouper and lobster became the staple food of Xu Jingkun on St. Helena.
When St. Helena Island was trapped due to the epidemic, 23 kg of lobster could not be exchanged for two kilograms of potatoes, and "only" lived with lobster and grouper. But within a few weeks, Xu Jingkun and his "oiled grouper" became the most popular protagonist in the anchorage (berthing area). Dinner on his dream was one of the most popular activities for sailors from other countries who have also temporarily “stranded” to this point.
In the Bari Bay of Madagascar, Xu Jingkun's Qingdao Dream became a "shop". After giving many daily necessities, including the T-shirt he wore, to the villagers who came to "look around" the foreigners, he received a steady stream of seafood from local fishermen. The captain quipped that here he achieved "lobster freedom."
In Chagos, known as "the last human restricted zone on earth," he grilled dinner with his wife and other sailors from 6 countries, studied the weather, and even learned Western cuisine. These are his most cherished global memories.
Xu Jingkun met sailors from other countries in Chagos.
When Didi Experience appeared in his answer as the "most memorable" role, after the completion of the voyage around the world, his statement was not difficult to understand: "Realizing the voyage around the world, what makes me the most proud is nothing else, in my personal results It doesn't make much sense, but in the process of realization, those friends who meet the same dreams across the world, the sincere friendship that motivates each other and inspires each other, is what I value most."
Life at sea propped up by one hand
Of course, if it is always so relaxed, this journey will not be so special.
In the Indian Ocean, he traveled from Phuket, Thailand to Galle, Sri Lanka. There are thousands of miles of islands on the route of thousands of miles. The tribes living on the island still stay in the primitive civilization 60,000 years ago. Anyone landing may be hit by arrow rain; on the route to the Mozambique Strait, he and his "Qingdao Dreamer" encountered another 70 knots. (Approximately 130 km/h) high winds and fist-sized hail.
These were only mentioned by Xu Jingkun after repeated questioning. Perhaps in the eyes of dream chasers, this is just the price that must be paid behind the dream, or perhaps, after the 12-year-old accident, these are just the slightest in the long river of his life.
Xu Jingkun and his dream were hit by high winds and hail.
That year, naughty, he poured the gunpowder from the firecracker into a yogurt bottle and tried to make "fireworks", but it caused a tragedy, and the explosion took his left forearm. Later, his entire nautical life was supported by one right hand.
Today, many reports write back that this accident that changed Xu Jingkun's rest of his life, "The accident did not take away his hope."
But in fact, in his own narration, he still clearly remembered the sentence he heard when he was carried into the ambulance: "This child is abandoned."
"This terrible nightmare once made me desperate." Xu Jingkun calmly confided the injury that accident caused him.
Childhood Xu Jingkun. Photo courtesy of interviewees
After some thinking, the naturally stubborn Xu Jingkun put all his future on sports, and he became a "specially capable child" as everyone in the town knew.
So at the age of 16, he received a notice from the sports school and was selected to the provincial track team. At the age of 17, originally planning to go to the National Cycling Team to report that he received a call from the National Disabled Sailing Team for selection, Xu Jingkun, who walked out of the mountain, met with the keel of sail that dispelled the haze of his life.
Then, it was this almost "obsolete" child who stood on the stage of the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games; in 2013, he completed a solo voyage around the China Sea; in 2015, he competed in the solo transatlantic regatta, becoming the second place after Guo Chuan Two Chinese who have completed this top international competition.
Regarding these, Xu Jingkun only mentioned one sentence: For the first time in human history, there was a one-armed captain who crossed Wang Yang with a 6.5-meter boat. This man came from China.
Xu Jingkun is in the game. Photo courtesy of interviewees
In the eyes of his wife A Jiu, Xu Jingkun has another look:
At the first encounter, he was alone and busy dealing with complicated matters such as registration and resume for crossing the Atlantic; after approaching, he curled up in a thin sleeping bag in the cabin of less than 2 square meters in order to obtain the theoretical qualification for the transatlantic regatta. After covering with bath towels and sailing uniforms, you can barely sleep; later, while participating in high-intensity sailing to earn points, in order to obtain the various certificates required by the competition all night long, until now, he has become Mr. X and the captain in her mouth.
A Jiu remembered that when he helped Xu Jingkun translate his resume, he once wrote: "I just want to tell ordinary people that even me, there are dreams, I can do it, they will do better than me; I hope they will do the same Of people with disabilities know that even us have the right to dream and the ability to realize it."
Data picture: One-armed captain Xu Jingkun. Photo courtesy of interviewees
One-armed captain of four "Dream"
For the title of one-armed captain, Xu Jingkun has no taboo. The sticker on the "Qingdao Dreamer" used by him to travel around the world is a cartoon captain with a steel hook in his left hand.
"Is there anything wrong with the one-arm? I have thought about my hand many times. What did I lose, but I did not lose it. It is precisely this way that I have the ability to break the layer of glass above my head."
And as in the movie Captain Jack is always accompanied by his "Black Pearl", another sign of the one-armed captain is his "Dream."
One-armed captain Xu Jingkun and his dream. Photo courtesy of interviewees
The China Sea in the winter of 2013 witnessed the first dream of the one-armed captain. Xu Jingkun drove a boat named "China Dream" to complete the world's first disabled person's voyage around the China Sea.
In 2015, he and the second Dreamer stood on the final battlefield of the French Mini Transatlantic Extreme Challenge, which is the most challenging and difficult single-transatlantic game in the world. In that competition, he became the only one-armed captain among the 896 finalists, and was the third Asian captain to enter the finals.
After the game, Xu Jingkun started a two-year search. After the 2017 World Championships, he finally found a perfect catamaran in Turkey. It was the third dream he dreamed of, which is now the Qingdao Dream.
Xu Jingkun's Qingdao Dream. Photo courtesy of interviewees
This dream number helped him draw a full circle on the earth. On May 20, 2020, Xu Jingkun and his catamaran sailed through 17 degrees north latitude, and completed the closure of the global route in the western waters of Cape Forte. The route was completely drawn on the earth.
In the plan, the one-armed captain will also have a fourth dream. There will still be a one-armed captain on that ship. The difference is that the next hug with the ocean will move towards the ultimate dream of Mr. Captain: a single person sailing around the world without interruption.
Data map: Xu Jingkun. Photo courtesy of interviewees
The four Dreamers have woven the dreams of Chinese one-armed captains one after another.
Regarding the dreams of "satisfaction", one-armed captain Xu Jingkun quoted a sentence in Kailuak's "On the Road" to express his heart: "I will die with life for a few more years. Either I will destroy, or I will Doomed to be brilliant. If one day, you find that I bowed my head in front of mediocrity, please shoot me." (End)