At the start of this tenth edition of the Vendée Globe, a young woman named Violette Dorange sets off aboard her monohull Devenir. Aged 23, she is the youngest participant in the history of this race. Very popular on social networks because of her infectious smile, she still admits to being afraid as she approaches the Cape of Good Hope.
The gap has widened in this Vendée Globe between sailboats with foils and those with daggerboards. The first mentioned are much faster and leave no chance in the long term to the other competitors. Violette Dorange is one of the skippers with a centerboard sailboat and is part of the second part of the peloton.
“My real goal is to finish the Vendée Globe”
In an interview given to The Team Channel for the show The Shock Team, Violette Dorange shared these first three weeks: “ Physically I feel good. I'm not too tired, I managed to recover well even if there have been a lot of maneuvers in recent days. I found a good rhythm on board. I sleep well, I eat well. It's going pretty well. Mentally, I'm good too because I don't feel lonely at all. I feel like I'm well surrounded by all my competitors so I'm in good spirits. If I know my ranking? I think I'm 24th or 25th (she's 26th in reality). All the drift boats are grouped together and I am in the top 4-5 of these boats. There is Jean Le Cam who is at the head of the fleet and who is going super fast. I'm in the match so it's nice. The ranking is a bonus, my real objective is to finish the Vendée Globe and not break. I follow my intuition and I don't act based on others. »
“It scares me a little”
But within two or three days, she will pass the Cape of Good Hope which is a source of concern: “ In recent days, I have been a little apprehensive because the Cape of Good Hope is approaching. We are going to find ourselves there right when there will be a big depression. We risk having wind gusts of perhaps 50 knots…The worst being the waves because we are expecting 6 meters of waves. It honestly scares me a little. »
