3 sources · updated 21 Oct 2026
Born in Lyon in 1958, Charles Hedrich did his military service at Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan and then became a merchant navy officer. From 1985 he spent seventeen years as an entrepreneur, floating his recruitment firm Euroman on the stock market in 1997 and selling it in 2002 to devote himself to sport and adventure.
In 2003 he rode the Dakar rally, then turned to offshore racing on an IMOCA: ninth in the Calais Round Britain Race, he retired from the 2003 Transat Jacques-Vabre after being dismasted. In 2004 he left Lorient out of competition before the Vendée Globe start and completed a solo round-the-world voyage in 122 days.
He climbed Everest in 2006, set an Atlantic rowing record from Dakar to Brazil in 2007, then went on to polar expeditions, the Northwest Passage, a return North Atlantic row in 2012, a rowing tour of France in 2016 and a self-sufficient walk across the Atacama desert in 2015.