Looking back at the Mini

Phil Sharp recounts his epic second leg of the Mini Transat and his meteoric rise from 58th to sixth place

After achieving a 4th place in Leg 1 of the 2005 Mini Transat, a result I was delighted with, I was fully psyched up and ready to sail for a top result in the gruelling 3,000 mile second leg from Lanzarote to Salvador de Bahia in Brazil. During the stopover Quantum Sails UK had done a terrific job completely putting back together and repairing by large and medium spinnakers, which had got trashed in leg 1. They arrived a couple of days before the start and at last everything was ready to go.

I was then left to concentrate on tactics: the big tactical decision at the start was which side of Fuertaventura to head down in the upwind conditions. I analysed the options in the few days prior to the start with a weather company of 'world-class' reputation who had given me a sound accurate forecast for the first leg. By the time race day arrived the router regarded the winning route as an extreme westerly route that took me west of all major Canary Islands. This would equate to an extra 150 miles or so of distance, but with much stronger wind out west they seemed very confident it would pay off and be the winning route.

At the start, incredibly the fleet separated straight away with pretty much half the fleet heading west on port tack to go round the northern tip of Fuertaventura, and the other half on starboard towards the African coast. I was one of the western leaders together with Yves le Blevec, and I could see that he was staying high, along with a lot of other boats behind, to head SW down the Fuertaventura channel. I had a big decision to make at this point. Do I play defensively and go with the rest of the western fleet, on a route I had specifically been told not to follow by my experienced router, or do I go for 'the winning route' I had been so convinced to take. I decided to go for it, bore away to a westerly heading, and soon had left the rest of the fleet as a distant glow of lights behind me.

The next two days I spent mostly close-hauled sailing around the top of all the islands and trying to avoid the huge hazardous wind shadows from the massive mountains on the islands. I thought it was all over when I got stuck in the lee of Tenerife, despite giving it 25 miles clearance, but fortunately this only lasted a couple of hours then I was moving again. Despite this, I had cleared the Canary Islands by day 3 - faster than my router had predicted, and I felt I could be in a very strong position now I had rejoined the racetrack. Back in VHF range with the rests of the fleet, I listened eagerly to people giving afternoon positions but was absolutely livid to find I was at the back of the fleet with Pogo 1s ahead of me (by far the slowest boats in the fleet) and the leaders more than 1.5 degrees further south - about 100 miles! Some of these people were not that much further east of me either! Just to make things worse, I slept through my alarm that night and instead of sleeping for 20 minutes I woke up seven hours later with the sails backed, heading northeast and going absolutely nowhere, with all the autopilot alarms going. This could mean another 40 miles or so lost to the leaders - big ouch!

It was very easy to lose all hope and now say there was no chance at all of even a top 10 in the Transat. I was very depressed about my position for the next day or so, after expecting big things, and have to say was quite demotivated for a while. The next day I had to give myself a big telling off, realising I had to get back on a positive note if I was going to enjoy this race at all and try and work my way back up through the fleet. It was a very long race. I knew I was capable of maintaining the pace of the leaders and with the fleet spreading out, being some 100 miles from the leader at the finish would probably get me a top 10 result, which is what I would be happy with after such a terrible start. I knew though that I had to get in the top 10 before the Doldrums otherwise I would probably be left in a different weather system, then it would be impossible to catch the leading pack.

Over the next few days down to our next waypoint, going through the Cape Verdes, I sailed very hard but decided it was very important to keep in good shape in such an endurance race, and had 3-5 hours sleep at night in order that I could by totally focused during the day and sail 100%. This seemed to work well and I had no hallucinations: a scary everyday occurrence in Leg 1 that usually involved seeing a few friends on board or hearing a German techno radio station!

I converged at the Cap Verdes with Tanguy de Lamotte, also sailing up through the fleet after a relatively slow start, and was pretty pleased to find out I had just entered the top 20, and was still within 100 miles of the leader. After gybing through the islands I had pulled up another few places and then instead of reliable trade winds south we had very light reaching in 3 knots for a day, which got unbearably hot. I had my most scary experience of the trip that day. Hearing a tweeting noise on board, I thought I had a small bird on board, but couldn’t work out where the noise was coming from. I traced it back to one of the cockpit rope bags and realised that there was something other than a bird living in it, but didn’t fancy finding out so went back to the helm. An hour later I got the shock of my life when this absolutely massive cockroach crawled out of the bag into the cockpit! I hate insects at the best of times and fortunately managed to persuade it off the boat with the help of a shoe. Over the next couple of days I remained paranoid, thinking every squeak on the boat was another cockroach!

We picked up the Trades again and a few days later I was sailing south of 8 degrees, waiting for the Doldrums to arrive, not really knowing what to expect which I have to say was quite exciting. Soon I was sailing towards a huge black cloud with the big kite up and as the wind started to quickly rise past 20 knots I realised I should be getting it down hastily. There was no need to hurry - god took it down for me. The wind suddenly increased beyond 30 knots and the boat was flat on its side with the kite ripping itself to pieces! I ended up cutting it away, taking care not to lose my masthead halyard, but then the whole thing ended up caught around the keel dragging behind the boat a couple of meters below the surface. Fortunately with the aid of a boat hook I managed to free it. I didn’t mind too much about losing by big spinnaker since it was now almost all upwind to Brazil, and I still had my medium spinnaker which was on the big side anyway. Unbelievably I met the southeast trades the other side of the cloud and basically had no doldrums, so it was a quicker than expected ride down to the equator.

The next few days down to the coast of Brazil were upwind, fairly uneventful, and wet. I started getting quite a few salt-sores on my face, arms and legs, which made life pretty uncomfortable. The highlight of each day was tea-time, for which I had a ration of fruit cake and two flapjacks. From the entry of the Doldrums to the finish I would be completely isolated - not hearing anyone on the VHF and not been able to pick up positions on the SSB. This was pretty hard to begin with, since it is easy to forget you are in a race and not sail 100%, but by the time I had met with the coast of Brazil I knew the finish was only a few days away and moral was a lot higher. The wind backed as a sailed down the coast until after what seemed like a lifetime I was at last gybing downwind towards Salvador on my finishing day.

I was incredibly excited about finishing. Spending the minimum time at sea and getting to civilisation (and the bar!) was my main motivation for sailing as hard as possible in the latter part of the race. If I finished in the top 10 that would be a big bonus and I would be especially happy at the finish. As I cruised round Salvador towards the finish line I was met by a couple of support boats with a few friends and relatives, including my father and grandmother, which was an incredible welcoming after three weeks alone at sea. My father indicated I was sixth which made the whole finish that much more amazing, since I hadn’t expected to finish nearly so strongly. I was even more ecstatic to hear after the finish that I had finished fourth overall, only 30 minutes ahead of fifth place, and that it was the second best British result in the Mini Transat, behind Simon Curwen’s second in 2001, and ahead of Mark Turner and Alex Bennett who finished 5th in 1997 and 1999 respectively.

On this note I have to say a huge thank you to everyone that has been involved with the campaign: sponsors, family, friends and supporters, that have enabled me to live my dream of attaining a top 5 result in the Mini Transat. Everyone’s encouragement really pays off when you are out alone on the ocean looking for more motivation, and I would never have got here without such incredible support. I only wish that from this success you could feel as rewarded as I am.