More than three years after the first accusations were made against him, French offshore sailor Kevin Escoffier appeared before the criminal court in Lorient on Monday, accused of sexually assaulting four women in France and abroad. He denies all charges.
The Breton skipper, a major figure in ocean racing, will come face to face in particular with a former press officer of his team. The 33-year-old Frenchwoman triggered the proceedings by filing a complaint against him, accusing Escoffier of assaulting her in a bar in Newport, in the United States, in May 2023 during a stopover in the Ocean Race.
According to her testimony, the skipper, drunk at the time, grabbed her breasts and buttocks without warning while hugging her. The investigation subsequently led to three other women who reported similar assaults by the 46-year-old sailor. They in turn filed complaints over incidents that took place between late 2017 and April 2018 in Melbourne, Australia, in Brazil and in Lorient.
Defence Challenges ‘Shameful’ Investigation
The three complainants, who were already present in Lorient on 30 March for a hearing that was ultimately postponed, are expected to sit among the civil parties on Monday. Escoffier contests the accusations. His lawyer, Virginie Le Roy, has requested “the annulment of the proceedings” and late in March criticised what she called a “shameful investigation”, citing in particular “interviews steered by investigators”.
Shortly after the accusations against him were reported in June 2023, the sailor left the crew of the Holcim-PRB monohull in the middle of the Ocean Race.
Federation Sanctions Annulled on Procedural Grounds
In October 2023, “given the body of evidence brought to its attention”, the French Sailing Federation suspended the sailor from all competition for 18 months and provisionally withdrew his licence for five years. But it annulled those measures in March 2024 because of a “procedural defect”.
Escoffier had also sued the satirical newspaper Le Canard enchaîné for defamation over an article discussing the alleged Newport assault and a “sailing #MeToo”. The publication was acquitted in May 2025 by the Paris criminal court, which recognised that the investigation rested “on a body of cross-checked and corroborated evidence”.
Feminist Collective Calls for Rally Outside Court
Ahead of the trial, which was due to open at 9am, the feminist collective NousToutes Lorient called for a rally outside the courthouse to support the victims and “break the silence on the violence that prevails in the world of offshore racing”. On 30 March, around a hundred people had already gathered outside the Lorient court in support of the complainants.
Several participants from the sailing world have told AFP of a culture “where there is a great deal of sexism and assault”. A 42-year-old woman, who said she had herself been sexually assaulted several times during 18 years in offshore racing, expressed the hope that the Escoffier trial would serve as a wake-up call for “people in the sport”. “Being a good sailor doesn’t excuse everything,” she said, nor does being under the influence of alcohol.
In a statement sent to AFP, the president of the Imoca class, in which Escoffier competed with Holcim-PRB, said his association “firmly” condemned “all forms of inappropriate behaviour”, recalling its “absolute commitment to respect for individuals and their integrity”. “However, the class is not intended to substitute itself for the justice system,” he added, saying it would defer to the courts.
