Scaling down

We speak to former rugby player and Vendee Globe skipper Bernard Gallay about his Mini Transat campaign

Few competitors in this year's Mini Transat are more qualified when it comes to singlehanded offshore racing than French sailor Bernard Galley.

We first came across Gallay when he used to race on Robin Knox-Johnston's catamarans in the 1980s. A towering former rugby player, Gallay was once described by RKJ as "one of the few people I know who's stronger than me!" When we saw Gallay on board his Mini FDI Groupe in La Rochelle prior to the start, his size, relative to the tiny pint-sized Mini, reminded us of Brian Thompson when he competed in the Mini in 2001.

Since his repeated crossings of the Atlantic on Knox-Johnston's British Airways catamaran, Gallay has competed on board Marc Pajot's French Kiss in Fremantle, and twice raced in the Vendee Globe, in 1992/3 on board Vuarnet Watches and then in 2000 aboard voila.fr, Christophe Auguin's 1996 race winner.

While he has also competed in the Figaro, this for Gallay, now 45, is his first Mini Transat. "I wanted to do the last Vendee Globe, but didn’t manage to find a sponsor, so I was thinking about doing the Figaro, but it was not as exciting as this. I have been wanting to do it several times but I couldn’t do it. The Mini is more offshore, which I like and the Mini Transat is a long distance race."

Compared to the Vendee Globe, non-stop around the world, the Mini Transat represents a relatively short hop across the ocean. However the personal and technical challenges are very different due as much to the length of the race course as to the tiny size of the boats.

"It is a different race. I was quite stressed by the start of the race - not as much as for the Vendee Globe, but it is not so dramatic. The last Vendee Globe I did in 2000, it was hard because I had two children and to leave everybody was a bit heavy. But for me the Mini is a very exciting challenge."

Gallay points out that three weeks - the rough duration of the second leg - is a relatively short period of time to be out of contact with his family compared to the three month duration of the Vendee, even though in the Mini Transat all communication with the shore is strictly prohibited. Despite the smaller and therefore potentially more vulnerable boats, Gallay says the Mini Transat doesn't pass through the Southern Ocean and is therefore, in his view, much safer.

Aside from the offshore element, one of the principle attractions of the Mini Transat for Gallay are the over-powered 21 footers the race is sailed in. "The boats are really exciting, they are very very lively and they are fun to sail. On the Vendee Globe boat you don’t bother to steer for hours and hours, but on the Mini you do because it’s fun and you add speed, especially downwind under spinnaker."

Launched this year, Gallay's Mini FDI Groupe is the newest boat competing in the Mini Transat, but is also one of the most technically advanced in the fleet. Her design is by Sam Manuard, who is perhaps designer of choice in the class at present and also one of the most successful sailors, having nearly won the 2003 Mini Transat save for a mast breakage. Aside from this, Gallay says Manuard is a neighbour of his in the south of France and was thus the logical choice to design his new boat.

The boat is one of the bullet-shaped maximum beam types, carrying huge volume all the way to her transom. "They are very good upwind to downwind as long as there is more than 10 knots of wind," says Gallay. "And if the wind goes very high then this is probably the best boat." The boat has a canting keel of course, but also 150lt of water ballast carried well forward, that Gallay uses to help lift the transom out, what is otherwise huge drag in light conditions. Accompanying the canting keel are twin asymmetric daggerboards that are raked slightly aft.

Most revolutionary about Gallay's Mini is her rig. With carbon fibre rigs being legalised for this Mini cycle, so four boats in the race have wingmasts. However the wing on Gallay's boat was the first to have one with no spreaders. Her rig is taken from the ground breaking Groupe Finot sports boat, the Open 7.50, however its shrouds are less swept back than on the Open 7.50 as occasionally there is the necessity to fully ease the mainsail downwind, Gallay explains. To make up for this her runners attach to the aft corners of her hull rather than centrally.

Gallay says he has sailed on the Open 7.50 extensively with manufacturer Nicolas Groleau. "We made some new calculations to adapt the mast to the Mini because with the Mini you have to use masthead sails. So we needed some reinforcement, but otherwise it is the same."

Like other Minis the boat has twin rudders in case one is damaged and to provide a more balanced helm to make life easier for the autopilot. In her cockpit is a semi-circular mainsheet track. Shrouds and runners are all in PBO. The lack of spreaders and having less rigging should allow Gallay greater flexibility in sheeting his headsails and controlling the slot.

As on most of the top boats, Gallay's Mini has reefable headsails and even spinnakers, due to the class' limit on the size of the sail wardrobe. Spinnaker size is all but unlimited, and most boats carry a smaller fractional kite for heavy reaching and running conditions. Gallay says he has had his kite up reefed with one reef in the main in 30-40 knots, but doing this is highly dependent upon the sea state. Under masthead spinnaker the boat is surfing in 12 knots of wind.

While Gallay says he steers most of the time under masthead spinnaker, on board he has the bigger NKE Gyropilot with a hydraulic, rather than electric ram used by those with Raymarine set-ups. The hydraulic ram draws more power so in addition to a solar panel mounted off the transom, Gallay also carries a small generator.

This season FDI Groupe won the Odyssey d'Ulysses, Gallay sailing two handed with Sam Manuard and subsequently finished fourth in the Course de Lyons. Sailing with Manuard was invaluable, Gallay says. "I learned about how to balance the weight on the boat a lot and the use of the sails. The major point is to move weight because it has a tremendous effect on the boat. It is really cool. If you are downwind and you keep weight at the keel level, the boat seems a bit heavy. And you move everything back and suddenly it goes 'pooosh'." So speaks an Open 60 sailor.

Finishing 15th of 41 in the Proto class on leg one, was disappointing for Gallay. After being in the top three in the Bay of Biscay, he admits he made a wrong tactical call gybing south towards the Galician coast before gybing back to the west, while the leaders remained offshore. Following that the front runners sailed into more breeze and simply extended.

In the brisk downwind conditions the boat was flying. Staying up all night the first night at sea, to keep the boat going at maximum pace under masthead kite, the boat was regularly hitting 20 knots, averaging 13-14. But it dropped when he was approaching the Spanish coast.

Compared to driving his Open 60 Gallay says: "It is more fun to steer but it is more exhausting, because you have to be on the helm most of the time under spinnaker, which you can’t do on a 60 footer that much because just to pull down the spinnaker can be tough and dangerous. On these you can carry the spinnaker up to the limit really. So it is very exciting, you are making incredible averages. But it is exhausting." Unlike Phil Sharp who was forced to change down from his masthead spinnaker whenever he wanted to sleep, Gallay says there were only four occasions when conditions forced him to change down in order to sleep.

During the first leg he experience no major problems, his sail wardrobe and his all-important spinnakers remained intact, but on his arrival in Lanzarote a check around the boat revealed a few items that needed to be reinforced.

At present Gallay is 23rd of the 69 remaining boats racing, having taken a route close to the African coast after leaving Lanzarote, then the western side of the Cape Verdes gate and is now soaking down to the south back to the centre of the race track. In a sporadic report from the race course (competitors can talk to the race's support vessels by VHF who then relay information ashore) he was complaining of a bird that had demolished his masthead wind instruments.

Speaking from Lanzarote prior to the start of the second leg Gallay said that the Doldrums crossing was likely to be something of a lottery. "Going through the Doldrums will be really a question of heading to a position and then hoping to have a bit of luck. I think that is the only way. On the Vendee Globe you can get some help from the internet, but even then it is quite tricky. On the Mini it is quite different, because we have to figure out where area is good and then head through then. We’ll just have to keep our fingers crossed that it will work."

After the Mini Gallay will return to running his yacht brokerage in the South of France. This is developed a reputation for selling French race boats. One of his company's more recently listings is the Cowes waterfront feature of Kingfisher II, Ellen's mast-free maxi-catmaran.

Racing-wise Gallay still feels there is another Vendee in him. "It depends upon how this project works out," he says. If this comes to pass and he is able to build a new boat, then we may be able to look forward to the first Sam Manuard designed Open 60...