“Do everything possible to make the boat fit”: after her collision on the Route du Rhum, Violette Dorange does not know if she will resume the race

Total suspense. The sailor Violette Dorange left Tuesday from Roscoff (Finistère) towards her home port of Lorient (Morbihan), where she hopes to continue repairing her ship in order to complete the 13th edition of the Route du Rhum, her team announced to AFP. After blocking a leak with her technicians, the young woman embarked alone on the Imoca Initiatives Coeur, still badly damaged by its collision on Sunday with Romain Pilliard's Use It Again trimaran.

“In Lorient, we will try to do everything we can to make the boat capable of completing a transatlantic crossing. There will be a need to deconstruct certain things to see what is broken underneath,” explained Ronan Deshayes, technical director of the team.

The finish line of the Route du Rhum must close on December 3.

During the impact, the ship's starboard foil cracked and several elements of the hull were damaged. By moving very slowly to preserve her sailboat as much as possible, the sailor hopes to arrive in Lorient on Wednesday morning. “We are at a stage where we are still waiting to make a definitive decision on the possibility of returning to Guadeloupe. We will have to take the boat out of the water, remove the mast and put it in the shed to be effective,” explained Mr. Deshayes. The finish line of the Route du Rhum must close on December 3.

Violette Dorange and Romain Pilliard, whose boat is also in Roscoff and damaged, have separately filed a complaint with an international jury of the French Sailing Federation (FFV) to define the responsibilities of each in the collision.

A jury must decide on penalties or bonuses

This jury must also rule on the time penalties or bonuses to be granted to the two skippers. On a video of the collision broadcast by France Télévisions, we can see the Imoca Initiatives Coeur entering the Use It Again trimaran at high speed. “The wind was getting stronger. I was accelerating and Romain's boat was maneuvering,” said Violette Dorange the day after the accident. “She didn’t see anything otherwise she would have avoided me. I was in front, almost non-maneuvering, in these conditions, it’s up to the others to get out of the way,” Pilliard said in an interview with l’Equipe.

The port side float of Use It Again is “exploded” and the structural damage to the ship is very significant, but the 51-year-old sailor also hopes to return to Guadeloupe once he has repaired it. His son Titouan, the youngest in the fleet at 20 years old, is currently making the crossing in the Vintage Mono category.