There is not a sailor in the world who does not recognise the craggy, conical peak of Cape Horn. It is, like it or not, the ultimate sailing goal, the siren of all nautical aspiration, the rubicon, once crossed, that bestows sailing spurs upon the voyager. Cape Horn’s lure haunts everyone from the man in the creek to the ocean voyager.

And yet more people – many more – have ascended Mount Everest (11,996) than doubled Cape Horn (2,319). Of the Cape Horners, 1,975 were crews, only 194 were solo non-stop circumnavigators, and the remaining 150 sailed round with stops.

Navigating the southernmost tip of South America is a forbidding prospect even for the most experienced of sailors. Photo: PPL

Not a single sailor who has rounded Cape Horn ever forgets it, and it is the most human of desires to want to share it with others. It is for this reason that the International Association of Cape Horners (IACH) was founded in 1957.

It was created as an associate body of the French Amicale Internationale des Capitaines au Long Cours Cap Horniers, founded two decades earlier in St Malo. Since then, sailors from all over the world have joined forces to share experiences of those who’ve been there and to enlist adventurous Cape Horners into a Hall of Fame based in Les Sables d’Olonne.

This year, French ocean legend Jean-Luc Van Den Heede, Vice-President of IACH, was honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the annual dinner in Portsmouth. He was the first person to receive this prestigious award.

A view of Cape Horn from the deck of Alaska Eagle, as skippered by Skip Novak in the 1981/82 Whitbread Round the World Race

Jean-Luc has rounded the Southern Ocean landmark a record 12 times during his decades-long sailing career – six times solo eastabout, four times solo westabout, once as part of a two-man delivery crew and once while cruising in 2014.

He still holds the world record for the fastest solo westabout circumnavigation of the world, which he completed in 122 days, 14 hours, 3 minutes and 49 seconds.

‘Cape Horn is not pretty, it’s just the end of the 40s and the 50s,’ said the former maths teacher, who has sailed round the Horn, with, variously, a dislodged keel, a dismasting and a jury rig of which we were shown some hairy video footage taken from a helicopter crew which flew so low, ‘the crew got their feet wet.’

Van Den Heede (l) steps ashore after winning the GGR. Photo: Skip Novak/PPL

The IACH also helps promote the Vendée Globe and has joined forces with the Golden Globe Race – partnering the 2022 edition – which is the non-stop, solo, round-the-world race, first established in 1968-69 in which nine sailors entered.

‘And only one finished, me,’ said Sir Robin, President of the IACH, as he took to the stage at the Royal Maritime Club in Portsmouth for the dinner, with over 160 Cape Horners in attendance, the largest number in the association’s history.

Gipsy Moth IV in 1967. Photo: Sunday Times/Chichester Archive/PPL

‘It is the most feared cape,’ said Sir Robin, ‘where it blows a full gale most days, a storm the rest, and a hurricane once a month. It is a very special achievement, not just sailing round it but getting down there to do it and back again.’

Since 1616 more than 800 ships have foundered off Cape Horn with the loss of 10,000 lives, he continued, drowned in 20 to 30m waves which roll on regardless and where sailors would pierce their left ear with a gold ring – normally the windward lobe while rounding the Horn – to pay for a Christian burial in case their corpse made landfall.

Celebrations aboard Fazisi in 1989. Photo: Skip Novak/PPL

Sir Robin explained why it is so rare to see a close-up photo of Cape Horn. ‘In case the wind goes south, then it’s a lee shore. Always give it, and all headlands, a wide berth. Never put the vessel in danger.’

Skip Novak was asked to donate something for the Hall of Fame exhibits and offered a huge, smooth ‘beach stone’, which he called the ‘Memory Stone’ taken from the shores of Cape Horn when he visited the lighthouse there aboard his yacht Pelagic in 1988. He had first sailed round the Horn a decade earlier.

French solo sailor Francis Joyon and his trimaran IDEC rounding Cape Horn.

Bursaries to enable adventurous souls to round Cape Horn are being set up by the IACH. Two pilot programmes for adult volunteer youth carers have already been carried out.

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Cape Horn Hall of Fame

• Willem Schouten (1567-1625), Netherlands
• Jacob Le Maire (1585-1616), Belgium
• Vice Admiral Robert Fitzroy (1805-1865), UK
• Capt. Vern Verner Björkfelt (1900-1982), Finland
• Capt. Thomas Carter (T.C) Fearon (1813-1869), USA
• Capt. Adolph Hauth, Germany
• Capt. Louis Allaire (1880-1949), France
• Alan Villiers (1903-1982), Australia
• Vito Dumas (1900-1965), Argentina
• Marcel Bardiaux (1910- 2000), France
• Sir Francis Chichester (1901-1972), UK
• Sir Alec Rose (1908-1991), UK
• Sir Robin Knox-Johnston (1939-), UK
• Bernard Moitessier (1925-1994), France
• Sir Chay Blyth (1940-), UK
• Ramon Carlin (1923-2016), Mexico
• Éric Tabarly (1931-1998), France
• Cornelis van Rietschoten (1926-2013), Netherlands
• Dame Naomi James (1949-), NZ
• Kay Cottee (1954-), Australia
• Jon Sanders (1939-), Australia
• Philippe Jeantot (1952-), France
• Titouan Lamazou (1955-), France
• Sir Peter Blake (1948-2001), New Zealand
• Dilip Donde (1967-), India
• Stan Honey (1955-), USA
• Dee Caffari (1973-), UK
• Jean-Luc Van Den Heede (1945-), France
• Dame Ellen MacArthur (1976 -), UK
• Grant Dalton (1957-), NZ
• Skip Novak (1952-), USA
• Jeanne Socrates (1942-), UK
• Franck Cammas (1972-), France
• Michel Desjoyeaux ( 1965-), France
• Loïck Peyron (1959-), France
• Jean Le Cam (1959-), France
• Dr Roger Nilson (1949-), Sweden
• Francis Joyon (1956-), France
• Andrew Cape (1962-), Australia
• Mike Golding OBE (1960-), UK

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