Sharp second in Odysee d'Ulysses

Fine result for British Mini sailor in two handed opening event of the season

Myself and crew, Tobias Hochreutener, were delighted to finish a close second in the first race of the 2005 Mini Transat racing circuit, the Odysee d’Ulysees, aboard GBR 419, Rafiki. This year the 800 mile non-stop race took the 21 boat fleet from Villefranche, on the Cote d’Azur, around Sardinia and back. The duo of two time Vendee Globe competitor Bernard Galley and Mini guru and designer Sam Manuard won the event aboard Bahia Express by only 2 hours from us after 800 miles racing.

The start saw the fleet head from Villefranche on a close reach in 20 knots down to the west coast of Corsica. Bernard and Sam on Bahia Express took the lead with conditions ideally suited the their new impressive carbon wingmast. We followed in second place, leaving the rest of the fleet a distant glow on the horizon behind us over the first night.

The wind was soon shifting southerly, giving me a chance to get my new large Quantum spinnaker out down the west Corsican coast and trying it against some large French sail areas. With two time Mini Transat winner Seb Magnen in sight behind us with his new lightweight series boat, we eventually left him behind and escaped into good pressure in the Bonifacio Straits, the first mark in the course.

The second night brought a funnelled 25 knots easterly wind down the Straits and we stuck close to the southern Corsican coast to escape the short waves. We found a great lift along the coast that pulled us right ahead of the rest of the fleet, with Bahia Express still lying in first after also making the most of this lift.

Dawn the following day saw us cutting the corner of northeast Sardinia through the tight passage inside the islands, unable to see another Mini 10 miles ahead nor 10 miles behind us. We were somewhat confused at this stage how we managed to pull out such a lead and had no idea weather Sam was that far ahead or that far behind - we suspected ahead!

Sam Manuard was actually two hours ahead by this stage, yet at the time we could see no boats and so just presumed he was ahead in order to maintain motivation to sail as hard as possible.

Sailing down the east coast of Sardinia was definately the most frustrating time I’ve had sailing offshore: Little or no wind, burning hot in the day and freezing cold at night - not that fun! We stayed on it the whole time however and managed to pull miles back over Sam until we were in visual range, some five miles behind.

As we approached the southeast corner of Sardinia, Sam managed to escape again out of sight around the corner before a southerly wind headed us and soon died, separating us considerably and increasing the gap to some 40 miles.

As we approached Cape Spartivento, the southeastern cape of Sardinia, the forgotten excitement of sailing Minis returned, as we held the masthead running spinnaker in a funneled SW breeze blasting us around the cape. In 22 knots of wind we changed to the reacher, but soon had the fractional spinnaker up as the wind accelerated around the high land.

Things were soon getting very hairy as the wind gusted more than 30 knots and I tried my best to slow the boat down before we ploughed into the waves at too high a speed and lost the rig. Before getting sensible I was however tempted to put in a couple of speed runs, and our hearts were in our mouths at one point when the GPS speed topped out at 19.1 knots!!!

After a couple of hours the wind headed slightly and we hoisted the gennaker and spent a very dark night screaming somewhat uncontrollably down waves at 10-15 knots, holding as much sail as possible in the hope of reeling off more miles between us and Bahia Express. The next morning the wind had veered again and we hoisted a fractional spinnaker again in 20-25 knots of breeze. This small spinnaker is very fast for reaching in these conditions and puts considerably less loads on the rig than a masthead, enabling me to grab some much needed sleep at night.

By this stage we had pulled back some 30 miles from Bernard and Sam and were determined to push hard through the final night to try and catch them before the finish. It was also extremely cold and I quite fancied a bed on dry land as soon as possible. It was little surprise after such thoughts that the wind headed us, and gave us a very wet upwind struggle to the finish in up to 30 knots of wind. Unfortunately the wingmast in Bahia Express works extremely well in these conditions and we had problems getting a third reef in the main to stop Rafiki getting blown over the whole time.

It was a great sight seeing the distant glow of the Cote d’Azur gradually increase in intensity to a blazing coast of lights and civilization. We eventually crossed the finish line in Villefranche only two hours behind Bernard and Sam, a close second after 800 miles racing. After getting back ashore we heard that the rest of the fleet were still down near Sardinia, and it took another 15 hours for the third place boat to arrive! There were many retirements to the race, mainly due to the strong winds on the leg home which saw people fighting upwind in more than 40 knots at times. Team Emotion ended up being airlifted from their boat after being blown miles west of Sardinia in gale force winds. Fortunately the boat was recovered safely.

Although initially slightly disappointed not to win the battle between us and Sam, I realised we had done well to pull back so many miles in the leg home, and it didn’t take long for me to be very chuffed with our result. Second is my best result in a Mini race to date and I hope to go one better sometime this year, preferably in the Transat itself!