The next Mini cycle

British competitor Oliver Bond updates us on his campaign and the latest from the class

Since we blackmailed Mark Turner into competing in the Mini Transat in 1997, ultimately dragging Ellen MacArthur along with him, a steady stream of British competitors have passed through the ranks of shorthanded offshore racing’s most diminutive class – Sam Davies, Brian Thompson, Paul Peggs, Simon Curwen, Nick Bubb, Phil Sharp culminating in last year’s Transat 6.50 Charente-Maritime/Bahia with Andrew Wood and David Rawlinson (read about them here).

11 years on and the complexion of the Mini class has altered slightly. Of course there remains the impressive challenge of racing shorthanded what is effectively a one third scale Open 60, but a boat otherwise little larger than a dinghy, offshore and occasionally transoceanic. The fleet as ever remains divided in two between the Protos (one-offs) and Series (one designs), where the former continues to be a hotbed of technology (it was here for example that canting keels for offshore race boats was spawned many years ago) with many of the new developments filtering through to other areas of our sport.

However inevitably the Proto class has seen costs rise and now a full-on campaign typically costs around 300,000 Euros, split pretty evenly between the price of a new boat and campaign costs. For this reason, not surprisingly, new boats are becoming increasingly few, those new to the Mini finding the Series class increasingly appealing.

While both David Rawlinson and Andrew Wood were last year sailing fairly ancient Protos, Oliver Bond and Nick Affleck, the two most active British Mini sailors this year, both of whom were also competing on the circuit sporadically last year, both are in the Series class aboard Groupe Finot-designed Pogo 2s. Olivier Bond’s Base Camp is in fact the boat Ecover skipper, Belgium’s Peter Laureyssens sailed to victory in the series class in 2005.

Bond, 28, has a background as a dinghy sailor, particularly in the Laser and in the International 14 (sailing with X Yachts designer Tim Smith) but has also experience of big boat offshore sailing including a year crewing on a 88ft Bill Tripp high performance cruising boat, during which they took in Alaska and the Galapagos.

So how did Bond get into the Mini class? “I knew Tobias [Hochenreuter] and Nick Bubb a bit and chatting to them. And I did the Mini Fastnet three years ago when I crewed for a guy called Nick James on a Stimpson design. We did the Fastnet and we didn’t have a great start but we got up into the top 10 briefly and then one of the rudders came off.”

Having sailed the 14 for so long, presumably this was a good grounding? “There are a lot of similarities, especially downwind on a short boat with lots of sail. It feels a bit similar.”

Experiencing the class in the Mini Fastnet was enough to get Bond looking at his own campaign. As Laureyessens opted to build a new Proto for the 2007 Mini Transat, so Bond acquired his old boat.

“A lot of it was a cost thing,” Bond admits of his decision to go for a Series boat. “And it’s less hassle as well. If you need to get a part, you can just order it off the shelf. The Series fleet has taken off quite a lot recently - the competition has gone up a lot in it. I looked at the Protos and I could have bought one, but it wouldn’t have been a top of the line one and so it was probably better to get a Series boat. All the Pogos go the same speed really, so you can’t go too far wrong.”

While a new Proto is around 150,000 Euros, a good secondhand Pogo 2 costs around 40-50,000 Euros. According to Bond much of the cost is down to all the safety kit that is mandatory for the boats to carry.

Despite having had his Pogo 2 for two seasons now, Bond admits he didn’t do many races in 2006 and slowly got into it last year. The Mini Fastnet he was supposed to sail with Dee Caffari (last year he was part of the Aviva Open 60 shore crew) but it was canned due to the hideous weather. “We did the Transgascoigne, which was in another gale. We had up to 45-50 knots,” recounts Bond.



Dee Caffari goes Mini sailing

Also last year Bond took part in some training before the season started. “It makes a massive difference,” he says. “I think now that if you don’t do some winter training you can’t get anywhere in the Mini because everyone has started doing it now.”

Heavens - training? What is happening to rock’n’roll nature of the Mini class? While training has been central to the more respectible Figaro class for ages, recently a couple of centres for Mini training have set up in France, where Tanguy Leglatin provides the tuition.

“It is probably slightly less intense and people aren’t doing the same number of days as the Figaro guys,” says Bond. “People are doing 20-30 days training before the season.”

While the main training centre is at AOS in Lorient, Bond tends to take part in the training at Pornichet. This season there have been four boats training there, training in four days chunks. Bond admits he doesn’t speak French and that is one of the reasons he goes to Pornichet. “A lot of it is in Englsh. This year we have got an Australia (Geoff Duniam), two French guys and a Chinese guy has just turned up. Last year it was myself, two Dutch guys and Francesco, the Portugese guy. We ended up doing it mostly in English.”

According to Bond, Duniam works in London (as does Aussie 2007 Mini Transat competitor Nick Brennan) and is looking at a three year Mini program, while the Chinese has literally just joined the class. “I don’t know if he is going to be racing this season. He is in France for a month and then he has to go back for the rest of the summer, but he wants to do the Transat. His English is pretty good. But I think he might find it quite hard.”

Another attraction of a Series boat, for those looking to get into the Mini class, is that there are a number of new designs rolling out for the first time this year. Series boats have a different set of rules to the Protos – for example they are only allowed water ballast (not a canting keel) and have a more restricted sail plan. This season will see three new series designs competing:



Leading Mini designer (and the man who drew Bernard Stamm’s double Velux 5 Oceans winning Open 60), Pierre Rolland has a new version of his Dingo, currently known as the D2. Rolland himself will be racing the first of these this year. Read more about this here



Axel de Beaufort and Alexis Muratet’s SMERSH-style Nacira Design Group, who have previously been behind the Open 60 Solune and a handful of Minis and Class 40s have a new design. This they have created in conjunction with past Mini Transat winner Corentin Douguet. Read about this here



Finally there is a Dutch-German collaboration in the optimistically named 2Win650 from Amsterdam-based Schickler Tagliapietra Yacht Engineering. Read about this here

With fewer new Protos being built, new Series boats are capable of eating into the Proto fleet despite being ostensibly slower boats (as Peter Laureyssens demonstrated when he finished 11th overall in the 72 boat fleet in 2005). “I think the latest Protos, the last generation, the new Finots and Lombards, they are quite a lot quicker,” says Bond. “But the older Protos, it is poassible to beat them especially on the shorter races. You can get in the top 10 or something. The longer the race, the harder it is. For the short coastal races you can occasionally have a nice surprise. The longer the race they have more horsepower.”

As to funding Bond has had some sponsorship from the commercial property consultants King Sturge since last year but is still looking to raise more funds for his campaign.

Bond’s program for 2008 starts off with training. This includes some racing but they are also looking at ‘sleep’ as for this season the class have allowed the use of sleep monitoring gear for the first time. His first race will be the 300 mile long singlehanded Pornichet Select on 26-30 April and then either the doublehanded Mini Fastnet in mid-June, starting and finishing in Douarnanez or the Open Sail, a two stop 960 mile long doublehanded race starting in Locmiquélic and visiting Saint Quay Portrieux and Cardiff (yes, on our shores), before finishing in Port Bourgenay. This he will be sailing with Nick Brennan.

But the big race in this non-Mini Transat year is the 2,600 mile solo race to the Azores and back, starting in Les Sables d’Olonne on 26 July where it will finish roughly a month later. This was held for the first time two years ago, when 70 boats competed and it was won by Brossard skipper Adrien Hardy. A similar-sized fleet is expected to compete in the race this year with Bond among them: “It’ll be nice, because it will be a good test run for all the systems and the navigation and stuff for the Transat. So it is important to do it from that point of view.”

But the big news is that finally the Mini class have got their act together and have sorted out the entry issues for their biennial Transat. For the past decade more than 100 boats have been competing for the 70 or so available places in each Transat. For 2007 the race was opened to an unprecidented 89 entries. But typically there have been numerous instances of boats getting built or qualified late and being on the waiting list only to be disappointed by not being able to compete on race day. Most notable among UK competitors this happened to was Nick Bubb in 2003.

To resolve this untendable situation Classe Mini have now elected to run a transatlantic race every year. Hurrah! Rather than alternating Proto and Series class events as has been considered in the past, instead the class will have races running on different courses on alternate years. In 2009 the Transat 6.50 Charente-Maritime/Bahia will take place as normal (as it will in 2011) but in 2010 will see the advent of a new race from Douarnanez to French Guyana with a stop in Madeira. “It is quite a nice course because you don’t have to go across the Doldrums and you can stay in the Trade Winds,” says Bond. Both races will be open to Series and Protos and will be sailed singlehanded.

Hopefully with it becoming easier to get into a Transat in the class, this might attract even more people to take part, including those from outside of France. For Bond believes the extremely tough reputation the Mini Transat has earned for simply getting a spot to sail in it has put some people off. Rising costs in the Proto class and the advent of the Class 40 may also have had an effect.

In the meantime Bond’s goal is the Transat 6.50 Charente-Maritime/Bahia. Having been in the class already for a couple of years and having race miles under his belt, qualification shouldn’t be too much of an issue. “Once I have done the Azores, it should be no problem at all.”

Read more about Oliver Bond's campaign at www.oliverbond.net