Violette Dorange finishes 25th in the Vendée Globe
by Vendée Globe media 9 Feb 11:36 GMT
9 February 2025
DeVenir skipper Violette Dorange (FRA) is photographed after taking 25th place in the Vendée Globe, on February 09, in Les Sables d'Olonne, France © Jean-Marie Liot / Alea
Violette Dorange completed her first Vendée Globe at 10:39hrs (UTC) today, after 90 days, 22 hrs, 37 min at sea, to not only become the youngest ever finisher on the solo round the world race at the age of 23, taking 25th place, but in so doing, the bright, vivacious, talented young French sailor from La Rochelle achieves a major new pinnacle in a career which started with her sailing the English Channel and the Straits of Gibraltar in a tiny Optimist dinghy as a 15 year old.
Her success marks her out as her as a major ocean racing talent for the future.
In so doing the very natural, down to earth Dorange - a multiple youth world championship medalist in the 420 dinghy - has built a huge following, engaging and inspiring a fan base numbering into the hundreds of thousands, many of whom turned out in Les Sables d'Olonne today to salute the young, rising star of this Vendée Glone.
Her April 17 2001 date of birth makes Dorange eight weeks younger than the previous youngest ever finisher, Swiss skipper Alan Roura who completed the 2016-17 race on 20th February after 105 days, six days shy of his 24th birthday. Her accomplishment comes some 24 years after the second place of the legendary British sailor Ellen MacArthur, then aged 24, who completed her race in 94d04h25m.
Dorange has already shone on a well proven pathway from talented Optimist sailor to 420 youth world medallist. She completed the Mini Transat race at just 18 before three successful years in the Figaro class in which she broke into the Top 10 overall in 2022. She completed two double handed Transatlantic races, most recently taking eighth on the Transat Paprec with Basile Bourgnon in 2022 and racing with British skipper Alan Roberts on the Transat en Double Concarneau
Legnedary French veteran Jean Le Cam recognised her talent and an extraordinary tenacity and took her under his wing. It has been on his super well prepared and proven Farr designed IMOCA, which already has five round the worlds to its name and which started life as Michel Desjoyeaux's 2008 race winning Foncia, that Dorange has completed her accomplished Vendée Globe.
Her enthusiasm for communicating in personal, non-dramatic terms has enchanted race fans of all ages. She enthused off the coast of Namibia that she had "never gone so far in her life"!
In her build up to the Vendée Globe she finished last year's solo Transat CIC in 18th place on The Transat CIC and then 18th again in the race back across the Atlantic, the New York Vendée.
Her Vendée Globe has been characterised by her alternating between phases of fierce, close racing with her rivals punctuated by prudent moments when she took her foot off the gas when she felt her safety was threatened.
On two occasions, before the Cape of Good Hope and especially before Cape Horn, the skipper of Devenir chose to ease back "It's a difficult decision, but I prefer to preserve my boat, not go and smash everything because most of all I want to finish this race!" explains the former Figaro sailor as she throttled right back for three days approaching the tip of South America along with the more experienced Arnaud Boissières and Eric Bellion.
"I was too scared"
It was her seamanship and adaptability, her ability to successfully deal with technical problems like her pedestal winch and her engine that allowed her to finish her race
And the youngest skipper in this Vendée Globe had her fair share of problems. In the Indian Ocean she completely dismantled and reassembled her pedestal 'coffee grinder'winch during seven hours. Then things got tough south of Cape Leeuwin, which she passed in 26th position in tough conditions. In a 50-knot squall, her FR0 tore and the runner block broke. "I thought the mast was going to break in two. I was extremely lucky," she said, before later facing a major engine failure reduced her energy generation capacity.
She did shared her anxieties and her hard times. On January 19 South of Brazil, she had to climb the mast for the second time in 20 knots of wind and 2 meters of swell! "Honestly, it was a nightmare. I thought I was going to hurt myself. I will never do it again in my life in such a situation because I was too scared."
But she always sharded her resolute contentment and a simple happiness at being at sea, the public's young darling went from strength to strength, crossing the outwards equator in 21st position, ahead of Jean Le Cam or loving the moments when snow was falling on the deck of her IMOCA in the Southern Ocean.
All the way from the start to today's finish line Violette Dorange has illuminated her race with all the joys of a successful first Vendée Globe, and for sure she is a sailor with a long and bright future.
Race in figures
- Arrival time (UTC): Sunday 9 February 2025 at 10h39
- Race time: 90d 22h 37min 09s
- Difference from first: 26d 03h 14min 20s
- Violette Dorange covered theoretical course of 23?906 miles at an average speed of 10.95 knots
- Violette Dorange covered an actual course of 28?057 miles at an average speed of 12.85 knots
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