In the middle of the Route du Rhum, this is a case that risks causing a reaction on the pontoons of Pointe-à-Pitre. Kevin Escoffier, 46, is on trial for sexual assault, his trial opens Monday, November 9 before the Lorient criminal court. It was in 2023 that his press secretary was the first to denounce the Breton skipper, at the time a star of ocean racing. Three other women then filed a complaint. Far from being an isolated incident, this affair has, on the contrary, revealed a sometimes violent climate towards women in the sailing world. A sport that is theoretically mixed, but in reality intrinsically sexist.
When you walk the pontoons before a race start, you won't find a skipper who doesn't remember a sexist outrage. “You can come with us, but you’re going to make the sandwiches, nothing else,” remembers, for example, Alexia Barrier, 46 years old. “While I was already fourth in the world in match racing and I was better than three-quarters of the crew.” Sasha Lanièce, 33, also testifies: "I can be on my boat, where there is my name written on it, I am tinkering or something and people say to me: 'hello, who is the skipper?'"
“A skipper, guys in the technical team and women’s communications”
To understand where these discriminations come from, we must go back to the origins of the marine universe. "It's only been since the 1970s and 80s that we've seen women in the merchant navy, the military navy, fishing, and even more so sailing," analyzes Clarisse Crémer, 11th in the last Vendée Globe. "We are just an extension of all these worlds. So, the image of the gruff, solitary sailor... There is a whole weight of history on this subject. a novelty and with all that that implies in terms of adjustments, whatever the subject."
As offshore racing became structured, a well-hierarchical system was surreptitiously installed, notes Sasha Lanièce, one of the latest arrivals on the pontoons: "A skipper, guys in the technical team and on communications, the press officers. That added to the gender difference, a difference in hierarchy."
"We consider that the skipper is the king. Then, the skipper needs the boat, so the technical team comes afterwards. And the communication is in addition, it's only for the partners."
Clarisse Crémer, browser on franceinfo
“Where are the little com girls?, she’s already heard. Anyway, the com girls, they do what they’re told.”
"Ce gars-là n'est pas très clean, attention"
Of the “com girls”, none of them wanted to testify. In fact, only one woman from the ocean racing world agreed to tell us how certain skippers use their dominant position. Several weeks after our meeting in Lorient, she finally had doubts and asked that her testimony be anonymized. “You want to come to my house, we’ll have the meeting during the day, when there’s no one there,” she’s already heard. "You say to yourself that it's weird, because, here, we're at the meeting, we can take fifteen minutes. Why go to your place? When he says to you, 'I can help you out, you can sleep at my place'... You never know, if it turns out, he would have served me tea, we would have had a meeting and it would be over. But you hear stories that come from elsewhere and you understand that in general when he offers tea, it's not tea. In fact, the girls, They tell you: this guy isn't very clean, so be careful."
Of the 30 best-known skippers, he was advised not to go near one or two of them, and five or six were designated as "heavy".
The fear of “making noise”
It is easy to understand why no one denounces it publicly. First of all, offshore racing in France is one and the same place: the Lorient pole. This is where almost all the boats and all the trades are concentrated. "It's still a small environment," explains Clarisse Crémer. "People pass each other on the pontoons. We call it 'pontoon noises'. In addition, we meet up for race starts around the world, where people will move around and be in the same hotels. That can completely explain a certain fear of not wanting to make noise, of not wanting to be noticed."
“Starting to speak on a complicated subject, it’s quite rare that it does us good professionally.”
Clarisse Crémer, browser on franceinfo
Then, in a sport where boats are becoming more and more sophisticated, money is the crux of the matter. "As in many sectors where there is a media issue, there is an image issue, underlines Clarisse Crémer. We are very dependent on sponsorship to exist, for our projects to live. So, sometimes, you have a reflex of fear of damaging the image of sailing, which is quite harmful. Because when we are afraid, it is rare that we take courageous positions, it is rare that we address the problems with clarity. And I think that when faced with issues of sexual assault, we all need clarity."
The French Sailing Federation has deployed a campaign in all sailing schools to combat sexism from an early age among future stars of ocean racing.
