The Route du Rhum, a very famous transatlantic single-handed yacht race, welcomes Xu Jingkun, the first Chinese skipper, as well as his China Dream yacht in 2022.

Xu Jingkun, born in 1989, lost his left forearm in an accident when he was 12. But he stood the test of fate and sought constant breakthroughs. At the age of 16, he joined the Chinese national sailing team and afterwards took part in the 2008 Beijing Paralympic Games.

Xu completed a solo sailing around China Seas in 2013, participated in the Mini Transat 2015 — a single-handed yacht race across the Atlantic — and finished a round-the-world voyage with a catamaran sailboat in 2020, which earned him the title of "the first one-armed skipper that has sailed around the world in human history."

In 2024, as the only international yacht driving license visa officer qualified for navigation in China, the U.K., the U.S. and France, Xu is set to compete in the Vendée Globe. This event is a solo world tour sailing race, non-stop and without assistance. It is considered to be the hardest for sailors, often referred to as the "Everest of sailing." According to incomplete statistics, there are fewer than 100 participants worldwide who have completed the race.