The navigator Kevin Escoffier, a figure in ocean racing, finds himself on Monday at the bar of the Lorient criminal court to answer for sexual assaults on four women, committed in France and abroad between 2017 and 2023, facts which he contests.
The Breton skipper had already been summoned on March 30 before this same court but the trial had been postponed at the request of the prosecution: his lawyer, Ms. Virginie Le Roy, had filed more than 150 new documents in the file only a few days earlier.
The four complainants, present at the hearing, and their lawyers agreed with this request for postponement.
The president of the court took the opportunity to request additional information concerning these new elements, which could shed new light on the debates, underlined Me Caroline Toby, who defends a former press secretary of the browser.
This Frenchwoman, now 33 years old, is at the origin of the proceedings against Kevin Escoffier. She accuses him of having attacked her in a bar in Newport (United States) in May 2023 during a stage of the Ocean Race, a crewed round-the-world race. According to his testimony, the skipper, drunk, had pressed her breasts and buttocks by surprise, while taking advantage of a hug.
The investigation then went back to three other women denouncing similar attacks on the part of the skipper. They in turn filed a complaint for acts committed between the end of 2017 and April 2018, in Melbourne (Australia), Brazil and Lorient.
Kevin Escoffier, 46, disputes these accusations, according to Me Le Roy. The navigator's lawyer requested "the nullity of the procedure", criticizing "an unworthy investigation", in particular "hearings directed by the investigators", according to her.
Shortly after the accusations against him were publicized in June 2023, the sailor left the Holcim-PRB monohull team in the middle of the Ocean Race. In October 2023, “taking into account the body of evidence brought to its attention”, the French Sailing Federation suspended the sailor from all competition for 18 months and temporarily withdrew his license for five years.
But she canceled these measures in March 2024 due to a “procedural defect”.
Le Canard Enchaîné had been sued for defamation by Kevin Escoffier for an article evoking the alleged attack in Newport and a “#MeToo of Sailing”, published in October 2023. The newspaper was acquitted in May 2025 by the Paris criminal court which recognized that the investigation was based “on a set of crossed and cross-checked elements”.
As on March 30, the feminist collective NousToutes called for a rally Monday morning in front of the Lorient courthouse, where the trial is due to open at 9:00 a.m., to “support all the victims, those who speak and those who do not speak”. Several participants at the gathering at the end of March, from the world of navigation, deplored to AFP a culture “where there is a lot of sexism and aggression”.
A 42-year-old woman, saying herself having been the victim of sexual assault on several occasions during her 18 years in the ocean racing world, had expressed the hope that the trial of Kevin Escoffier would serve as a wake-up call for “people in the industry”. “Being a good sailor doesn’t excuse everything,” any more than being under the influence of alcohol, she declared.
Naval engineer and member of an illustrious family of Breton sailors, Kevin Escoffier made himself known to the general public by coming close to death in November 2020 during the Vendée Globe. Shipwrecked during a storm off the Cape of Good Hope, he jumped into his life raft before being rescued at the last minute by Jean Le Cam.
