Basile Bourgnon, son of Laurent Bourgnon, who won the Route du Rhum twice (1994 and 1998), started offshore racing very young. He took up sailing at 11 on a catamaran, a repaired Hobie Cat, having grown too tall for the Optimist. In 2019, aged 17, he sailed his first Transat Jacques Vabre in Class40 alongside Emmanuel Le Roch.
He continued his apprenticeship in the Mini 6.50, finishing 18th in the 2021 Mini Transat, then in the Figaro Bénéteau, finishing 2nd in the 2023 Solitaire du Figaro Paprec and 7th in 2024.
He then moved to multihulls, like his father, though he insists the choice was his own: multihulls have seemed an obvious path to him since childhood. He took the helm of the Ocean Fifty Edenred, launched in 2025, on which he won the 2026 Drheam Cup solo after just under three days of racing at an intense pace. Aged 24, he started the 2026 Route du Rhum in the Ocean Fifty division as one of the favourites and built a lead of more than 120 miles, before losing a sail in violent squalls: by 9 November his pursuers Pierre Quiroga and Thibaut Vauchel-Camus had closed to about 15 miles.
