Kevin Escoffier is a French professional sailor born on 4 April 1980 in

Saint-Malo Saint-Malo (, , ; Gallo language, Gallo: ; ) is a historic French port in Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany (administrative region), Brittany. The Fortification, walled city on the English Channel coast had a long history of piracy, earning much wealth ...

, France and a resident of

Lorient Lorient (; ) is a town (''Communes of France, commune'') and Port, seaport in the Morbihan Departments of France, department of Brittany (administrative region), Brittany in western France. History Prehistory and classical antiquity Beginn ...

. He is an offshore sailor who has won the 2018

Volvo Ocean Race The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean Rac ...

as a bowman onboard DongFeng and competed in the

2020–2021 Vendée Globe The 2020–2021 Vendée Globe was a non-stop round the world yacht race for IMOCA 60 class yachts crewed by only one person. It was the ninth edition of the race, which started and finished in Les Sables-d'Olonne, France. The race began on 8 Nov ...

aboard PRB. In 2022-23, he initially skippered Holcim-PRB in The Ocean Race, before leaving the team amid a sexual misconduct probe. He is a member of the yacht club SN Baie St. Malo.

Biography

He studied Engineering for 3 years at EPF in Paris, 2 years at the

École Polytechnique de Montréal École or Ecole may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * Éco ...

and 8 months at the

University of Maryland The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD is the flagship institution of the Univ ...

and now specializes in composite engineering. One of his first projects was being involved in the development of Multi 50 class "Crêpes Whaou! 2", which was built for his father Franck-Yves Escoffier, also an offshore sailor. This boat was launched in April 2005 and in November of that year Escoffier and his father won class in the

Transat Jacques Vabre Transat may refer to: * Transat A.T., Canadian tour and travel agency ** Air Transat, Canadian airline owned by Transat A.T. * Concept Composites MD03 Transat, French ultralight aircraft * "The Transat", also called the Single-Handed Trans-Atlant ...

. We was involved in various IMOCA projects for other skippers, and has headed up Team Banque Populaire's design office.

2020–2021 Vendée Globe Rescue

While competing in the

his IMOCA 60 PRB hull broke in half, sinking quickly in the Southern Ocean. Describing the speed of the incident he said “I didn't have time to do anything, I just had time to send a message to my team. I'm sinking, I'm not joking. MAYDAY.” He later recalled how the boat folded in half. The race director sent fellow competitor

Jean Le Cam Jean Le Cam (born 27 April 1959 in Quimper, Finistère) is a French sailor. In 1981–82, he was a crewmember on Euromarché in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. Le Cam was crewman with Éric Tabarly and Michel Desjoyeaux, and won t ...

to the area who found Escoffier in his life raft, but lost contact while preparing to recover him. More competitors were sent to help with the search but Jean Le Cam found Escoffier for the second time several hours later and took him on board. The rescue got extensive coverage with French President

Emmanuel Macron Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who has served as President of France and Co-Prince of Andorra since 2017. He was Ministry of Economy and Finance (France), Minister of Economics, Industr ...

getting in contact with Escoffier and

. Escoffier later described the way the boat folded in 90 degrees and the very limited time he had to abandon ship, and how him carrying a personal AIS beacon helped save his life.

Results

References

External links

*
Vendee Campaign Website
* * 1980 births Living people Sportspeople from Saint-Malo University of Maryland, Baltimore alumni French male sailors (sport) Volvo Ocean Race sailors Volvo Ocean 65 class sailors IMOCA 60 class sailors French Vendee Globe sailors 2020 Vendee Globe sailors 21st-century French sportsmen {{France-yachtracing-bio-stub