The other Ecover skipper

We speak to Belgium Mini sailor and Series class winner from 2005, Peter Laureyssens

Say the word 'Ecover' in sailing circles and the name one associates immediately is of course Open 60 skipper Mike Golding. However at present competing in the Transat 650 Charente-Maritime/Bahia (Mini Transat) race is Belgium sailor Peter Laureyssens, who's immaculate new Proto Mini is also sponsored by the leading brand of eco-friendly cleaning products and ressembles a one third scale model of Golding's steed.

Laureyssens is something of a unique individual in the Mini class. Having spent most of his childhood dinghy sailing in Cadets and ultimately two years spent in 420s, he gave up sailing when he went to university and ultimately ended up working as a consultant to IBM in Paris. Aged 30 in Paris, and presumably going through some form of mid-life crisis, Laureyssens came across the Mini class while reading a copy of Voiles et Voiliers magazine (France's Yachting World). "I didn’t know about it and I thought it looked great," he recalls.

That was six years ago. In 2003 he embarked on his Mini campaign by buying one of the first of the new Finot-Conq designed production boats, the Pogo 2 and campaigned this in the 'series' class with considerable success. In 2005 he won the series class in all the significant events such as the Transgascoigne, before ultimately winning the class in the Transat itself.

Even before the Transat two years ago Laureyssens knew he wanted to up his game in the class by moving into a state of the art Proto. During 2005, he was already talking to designers Finot-Conq about a new boat and by the time he was competing in the Mini Transat that year his new boat was already under construction at Thierry Fagnent's AMCO yard in La Trinite-sur-Mer.

Eventually the new Ecover would be the first of three new Finot-Conq designs cracked from the same moulds at AMCO including Isabelle Joschke's present leader, Degremont-synergie. The third, for Erwan LeRoux was unable to get a place in this year's Transat.

Between Ecover and Degremont-synergie the hulls are identical and both are fitted with rotating wingmasts, only the wingmast on Ecover doesn't cant sideways or fore and aft as it does on Joschke's boat. "Adrien Hardy on Brossard has the same system. And Adrenalin has that same system too. For me it is a little bit late because they only changed it a couple of months ago," says Laureyssens.

The spars on the new Ecover were built by Heol Composites, who seem to have suddenly popped up as one of the leading producers of carbon fibre bits and pieces in France (they made the rudders for the new Open 60 Safran and for L'Hydroptere, etc). They now seem to be the spar maker of choice in the Mini fleet, for not just masts and booms but for the Mini's complex articulating bowsprits.

The big difference in going from a Series boat to a Proto were evident last year when Laureyssen had his first season in the new Ecover. While his Proto 2 had been all but bulletproof, on the new proto there were endless gear problems. "I was happy with the performance of the boat because my first race was the Mini Fastnet and we were the first boat at Wolf Rock so that was great," he says. "I was always first at one point... In the Azores race on the first leg I was first at Cape Finisterre and on the leg back I was first in the middle of it, but there was always something going wrong. Most of it was technical problems. In the Azores the screws came off the rudders and I had these Lithium Ion batteries which were not working very well."

However this year he reckons he has most of the bugs removed and alongside Isabelle Joschke and Yves le Blevec has been on the podium for most of the major races.

Laureyssens was obviously involved with Finot-Conq on the design of his new boat from the outset. The basis for the boat he says was 151, the fixed keel Finot-Conq design Moulin Roti, that Armel Tripon sailed to victory in the 2003 Transat (read about this here). "That boat was very fast downwind so that was the basis of the plans but that boat was really made for downwind to go to the Caribbean so we wanted a boat that was more powerful with a swing keel."

Before teh designers put pen to paper they carried out a weather study and interestingly while the old Mini Transat course between Brittany and the Caribbean was pretty much downwind, the new course between La Rochelle and Salvador de Bahia, Brazil, including the crossing of the Doldrums and dealing with two sets of tradewinds, demands a boat with much more all-round performance and in all sorts of wind strength.
Compared to the older generation boats the new Minis (like the new generation of Open 60s) are considerably more powerful animals, everywhere. The new boats have longer daggerboards for improved upwind performance, a swingkeel is now standard fit, the hulls are all much more powerful - the Finot-Conqs are much flatter in the bottom but haven't gone to the extremes of Yves le Blevec's new Lombard design nor Sam Manuard's Sitting Bull that both have chines.

Around seven of the more competitive boats have wingmasts, some of which can be raked fore and aft (as is the case on Isabelle Joschke's leg one winner). "Wingmasts have always been allowed but carbon wasn’t," says Laureyssens. Carbon spars were permitted in the class for the 2005 race, but while some relatively heavy wingmasts were built for that race, today wingmasts are not much heavier than a conventional mast - Laureyssens reckons around 6-7kg. Oddly the main advantage of them in the Mini class is not some fancy aerodynamic efficiency bonus, it is more to do with the sail plan and sail handling. "I think in terms of performance there is not a big difference because they are still heavier and I think in terms of aerodynamics it is not that important - we are not going at 30 knots 0 but the important thing is we don’t have the spreaders for ripping up spinnakers and it is much easier to sail with less rigging, etc."

With no spreaders to get in the way, the wingmast set-up also allows considerably more flexibility in the sail plan - which, inevitably has got bigger with a more stable, powerful platform to sit on. Whereas older Mini rigs had the mast well forward, and relied on big mains with a relatively small Solent jibs with no overlap, today rigs have shifted aft, allowing the use of bigger headsails - full on overlapping affairs can be fitting on the spreader-less wingmast boats, or smaller overlaps on boats with the 'boomerang' shaped spreaders, while mainsails have gone up in size thanks to their giant multihull/AC-style square tops.

Boats tend to only carry one genoa, but this typically has two reefs in it and then there are four downwind or reaching kites. Laureyssens says on Ecover they carry three different sized spinnakers of 50, 70 and 90sqm.

Other technical developments this time round, Laureyssens says most boats now have PBO rigging while their twin rudders all kick up in the event of collision, similar to the Open 60 class. They will also usually sail with the weather rudder in its kicked up position.

On the all-important power side, many boats this time are using fuel cells and Laureyssens reckons this will be the last year small petrol or diesel generators will be allowed in the class. "The fuel cells are very efficient, lighter than the generators and they are easier because you don’t have to do anything they start working when the voltage is going do and you don’t need diesel, etc." However he is not using one, relying entirely on solar panels to recharge his batteries and provide enough power to run his autopilot.

Wonga

In terms of the cost, Laureyssens says prices have gone up. Typically a new boat costs, ready to sail around 160,000 Euros while a good secondhand boat is 80-120,000 Euros.

"In terms of running costs, most still don’t have a preparateur - more than 90% are still working on the boat," says Laureyssens. Almost none have full time shore crew, while some of the top campaigns just have shore support for the final weeks building up to the start. "To win the Transat you have to be professional and you have to do it for 2 years but you can still do iton your own, without a preparateur."

As a result running costs are still cheaper than a Figaro campaign, which including depreciation of the boat he reckons is around 200-250,000 Euros per annum for the Figaro compared to around 100-150,000 Euros in the Mini for a top campaign.

Personally Laureyssens says he has been a full time, professional Mini sailor for a year now. "I think in the series boats about 90% of them are still amateurs and in the Protos about half of them are professional."

Leg one

For Laureyysens his result in leg one was a disappointing one - 14th out of 89 boats, some 14 hours later than Joschke, but this was after season when he has enjoyed mostly podiums. "I had a good start, I was second at Cape Finisteerre and then I went too far to the west. That was our strategy from the beginning but apparently the whole system shifted a bit to the east. The idea was to go a little bit into the high and then gybe away but the wind was away very quickly and I couldn’t get out."

To the east after Cape Finisterre, he experienced 25 knot winds for a brief period while those further east had 30 knots and generally stronger wind for longer. "Isabelle sailed the perfect route there. She did very well," he reflects.

Despite a disappointing result the leg was good fun - pretty much all downwind. As he says: "I put up the genoa for the first leg to round the first buoy and I put it down below. And then I got it up again one mile before the finish."



Leg 2

So will he be able to make up the time difference? "You never know. It will be difficult. When there is one person in front of you they can always get caught under a cloud. There are three boats now quite far away now from the fourth boat. I am not thinking about that, I am just trying to do a very good second leg."

While the first leg was short enough to provide a reason forecast all the way to the finish on the second leg, almost three times as long, this won't be the case. However the situation has improved over previous years. While they are not allowed any two way communication devices other than a VHF radio, they are allowed radio receivers and most now have satellite radio receivers. "That is good because we have good reception. Before you were lucky sometimes, sometimes not. But that only works up to the equator." Via this competitors can received a daily forecast that France Radio International transmit once every 30 minutes.

However this still won't offer a complete solution. For the second leg they will get a good forecast for the start, then will rely on the radio forecast but come the Doldrums, Laureyssens says, "it will be a big poker game". And then they are into the South Atlantic trades heading for the finish in Brazil.

The 3,100 mile long second leg of the Transat 650 Charente-Maritime/Bahia from Funchal, Madeira to San Salvador starts on 6 October.

Post Mini

Beyond this Transat 650 Charente-Maritime/Bahia Laureyssens reckons he'll move on from the Mini class. "Five years is enough," he admits. "I would like to go on. I have been talking with Ecover and in principle they would like to continue. I would like to do an open 60. In principle they are okay but it is not signed and it depends a lot on this Transat. For me it is like a test. If I do well it will prove I am a good sailor and for them it will depend upon the results and for me it will be down to the pleaasure I have."

So perhaps Laureyssen is the pretender to Mike Golding's position?

More photos on page 2...