Mini Transat 2009 preview

Charente-Maritime/Bahia Transat 6.50 to set sail this Sunday

The Charente-Maritime/Bahia Transat 6.50, more popularly known as the Mini Transat, sets sail this Sunday with a fleet as powerful as ever previously seen in the 32 years since Bob Salmon ran the first race for the ocean-going tiddlers from Penzance to Antigua in 1977. This year, as has been the case since 2001, the race starts from La Rochelle and ultimately heads for Salvador de Bahia, Brazil with a stopover in Madeira (which replaced Lanzarote as the stopover port in 2007).

The first leg is 1,100 miles, involving a short sprint across the Bay of Biscay and round Cape Finistere, down past Portugal and Spain and into the beginning of the trades, before arriving in Funchal. The restart from Madeira is on 3 October for the longer, more hardcore transatlantic leg out into the trades (hopefully) past the Canary Islands and the Cape Verdes before the skippers have to tackle the Doldrums and Equator and then out into the southeasterly trades that should slowly back as the fleet approach Salvador, 3,100 miles from Funchal.

The challenge of the Mini Transat of course remains as unique as it has always been. Yes, the race is singlehanded and transatlantic nothing espceially new there. Skippers have the usual singlehanding issues such as sleep deprivation, when to eat, when to navigate, how much to steer and trim, managing and minimising problems, etc just as the Vendee Globe skippers experience, albeit at a one third scale.

However the experience is very different sailing a boat that is just 21ft long in the ocean, especially one fitted with a monster 3+m long bowsprit. But the most significant difference to singlehanding an Open 60 is the Mini’s lack of satcoms - the only radio equipment permitted is VHF and an HF radio to receive forecasts. While Open 60 or Class 40 skippers can happily communicate with friends, relatives, sponsors, press, etc via satcom and Iridium as their mood takes them, on the Mini Transat sailors are genuinely on their own without anyone to talk to or email/Skype with and, in the case of the second leg, this can last for more than three weeks. When was the last time you spoke to no one at all even for a whole day? This has an interesting and occasionally quite entertaining effect on the character of the skippers when they reach the finish line, as not only have they experienced the most profound isolation they are ever likely to in their lives, but typically they are completely clueless as to their position on the leaderboard.

Hardware

The race is of course sailed in Minis, the 6.50 pint-sized version of Open 60s. These come in two flavours: the one-off ‘Protos’ and the ‘Series’ production boats.

Demand to do the race is as high as ever with more than 100 applicants this time, but an interesting change is that the fleet this year comprises 36 Protos and 49 Series boats - in the past the two fleets have had an even spread. This year’s bias towards Series boats is partly due to the escalating costs of running a Proto - this can now be as much as 300,000 Euros for a new build followed by a two year campaign, quite a lot for a 21ft boat - while the Series class is no longer considered the dumbed-down cruiser racer division for the doctors, dentists and candlestick makers, but more an opportunity for hotly contested one design (ish) offshore racing, the best example being the dominance of the Finot-Conq penned Pogo 2 of which a phenomenal 31 are competing - distinctly a fleet within a fleet within a fleet.


Protos

Protos are effectively small Open 60s, generally carbon fibre construction some coming complete with similar, albeit smaller, canting keels, twin rudders, twin daggerboards and occasionally rotating wingmasts that in some instances can be both canted to weather and raked, as is the case on the 2007 generation Finot-Conq designs Faber France of Proto class favourite Thomas Ruyant and Olivier Avram’s Cap Monde 2 (the boats which Isabelle Joschke and Peter Laureyssens respectively raced two years ago).

Traditionally the Proto class has been the test bench for technology that ultimately gets scaled up into the Open 60s – it was here for example that Yves Parlier first fitted his with a carbon mast (back in 1987) while in 1991 Michel Desjoyeaux first fitted an offshore boat with a canting keel, something that was adopted three years later in the 60ft class when Isabelle Autissier installed one on board her Ecureuil Poitou Charente for the 1993-4 BOC Challenge.

It has to be said that the Proto fleet in 2009 lacks the crazy innovation the class was once famous for. In the past we have seen budding yacht designer-skippers install keels that rotate around a ball socket or that move fore and aft on a kind of hinged parallelogram. Today most keels on the Protos merely cant - via the use of a block and tackle purchase system rather than the hydraulic set-ups found on their big brothers - although there remain a few boats that feature a cunning secondary rotation system in their keel canting set-ups that allows the length of the keel foil to extend as it is canted (thereby staying within the Minis' maximum draft limitation of 2m). The most radical keel set-ups are probably still to be seen on the two Simon Rogers-designs – Andrew Woods’ www.solochallenges.com (formerly Nick Bubb’s boat) and Arnaud Vasseur’s l’Association Capucine (the venerable vessel that took Brian Thompson and then Jonathan McKee across the Atlantic – or most of the way in McKee’s case). These boats feature a single canting daggerboard (as opposed to twin asymmetric boards) and a keel that not only cants, but slides fore and aft too.

Probably the most radical new boat in the Proto fleet this year is Italian Andrea Caracci’s Speedy Maltese, a Sam Manuard design which features a Millenium rig (ie standard tubular spar with the diagonals passing through the mast) where the whole deal can be raked fore and aft. It achieves this by having the mast step recessed into a trough so that it is at the same height as the chain plates for the shrouds - the whole rig rotates about this axis. As a result the top of the mast on this boat can be moved fore and aft by up to 1.5m. More on this in due course.

One good sign is that while there were nine new Protos built for the 2007 race (when times were good economically) for this race (when they aren’t) there are the same number and, interestingly, from a wider range of designers. There are no new Finot-Conqs sadly, while Marc Lombard has only one, in his employee Henri Paul Shipman’s Maison de l’Avenir Urbatys, despite Yves le Blevec’s Lombard-designed Actual winning the 2007 race. Two of the hottest new boats are the Sam Manuard designs Speedy Maltese, mentioned above, and Bertrand Delesne’s Entreprendre Durablement, while there are two Spanish boats from Ricardo Teixido, Gerard Marin’s Gaes 727 and Toni Weijl’s Gaes 684. Etienne Bertrand has also designed two boats, Jorg Riechers’ Mare and Nicolas Boidevezi’s Defi GDE(see pics on page 3), while also new to the class is the more familiar name of Martin Fisher, better known for his A-Class cat designs and his work on Franck Cammas’ Groupama trimarans, who has designed Nouvelle-Caledonie for fellow Noumea resident, Antoine Rioux (below - and pics of the boat on page 2). Finally the SMERSH-sounding Nacira Design Group have launched a new Series boat, but haven’t reached the eight boats necessary for it to compete in the Series class. It is thus racing as a Proto - the sole example being American Chris Tutmark’s USA 724.



Aside from the Nacira series boat and the pointy-bowed Fisher design, all the new boats appear to have similar hull shapes with the maximum permissible beam of 3m and with substantial chines a la new generation Open 60s/Volvo 70s/Class 40s. Similarly the standard Proto rig package is now typically a Heol Composites carbon fibre fixed mast and boom and the complicated Mini bowsprit arrangement, where the 3-4m long sprit articulates around its bow fitting. Under class rules the sprit cannot be deployed for starts but equally when they are pulled back cannot protrude beyond the boat’s maximum 3m beam, hence why the stanchions on Minis are frequently well inboard of the perimeter of the foredeck.

We hope this isn't the end of the radical Proto.

	Proto (2008 Lombard)	Series (Pogo 2)
LOA:	6.5m	6.5m
Beam	3m	2.99m
Draft	2m	1.6m
Bulb	320kg	430kg
Displacement	740kg	1005kg
Consturction	Carbon/foam sandwich	GRP
Keel bulb/foil	Lead/high modulus carbon	Lead/steel
Rudders/daggerboards	High modulus carbon	GRP
Main sail	30sqm	26sqm
Solent/genoa	19sqm solent	18sqm genoa
Spinnaker	95sqm	75sqm
Bowsprit	unlimited	2.7m

Series

As mentioned, one of the most exciting developments with the Series class is how it has evolved over the last races from being for amateur cruiser racers (although there remains an element of this) into a highly competitive collection of near one design classes. This is unquestionably dominated by the massive collection of Pogo 2s, where as Ollie Bond, skipper of the Artemis Ocean Racing Pogo 2, tells us in our video dockside tour, keener competitors are refixing their keels, having professional fairing jobs done and are even carrying out slightly more dubious tweaks for a supposed one design class such as swapping out their standard jib tracks for an ABN AMRO-style flying block/barber hauler arrangement, etc.

The difference between series and proto boats is most evident from the mast – the former have alloy spars, the latter carbon. Despite the heightened competition in recent races, the series boats are effectively detuned Protos, less powerful, with a fixed keel (movable ballast takes the form of the fresh water that can be moved around below) and with carbon banned from construction and foils, although oddly it is allowed for add-ons such as stacking rails, foot chocks, etc.

While the Pogo 2 is most prolific Series boat, there are others including the older Pierre Rolland-designed Pogo 1 and Jean-Pierre Magnan designed Super Calins, which are more cruisey. In the early to mid-2000s many other new series boats had been created such as the Lombard-designed Zero, the Rolland-designed Dingo, the Ginto designed by double Mini Transat Proto winner Sebastien Magnen, and the most recent of these, the Tip-Top from another former competitor/designer, Sam Manuard. With Magnan, Magnen and Manuard designing Minis it is easy to see why the Series world can get a little confusing.

On the starting grid this year is an example of the very latest Series boat - the Dingo 2, sailed by her designer Pierre Rolland, which while it has a large cabin top also has a more modern Proto-style hull shape with very substantial chines extending almost the entire length of the hull.

Skippers

Particularly impressive this year is just how international the fleet has become. While the majority of the 87 boats entered are French, 14 nationalities are represented including New Zealand and Australia, South Africa and the USA. In fact while there are more foreign sailors than last time they are from fewer nations. The international spread is as follows:

French – 52
Italy - 9
Spain – 6
UK – 3
Germany – 3
Switzerland – 3
South Africa - 2
Australia - 2
USA - 2
Netherlands – 1
Norway – 1
New Zealand – 1
Portugal - 1
Brazil - 1

The Brits in this line-up are Artemis Ocean Racing’s Ollie Bond, who is one of the favourites for the Series class. From Romsey is Keith Willis, who, like Bond, also is racing a Pogo 2. He has considerable experience doublehanding, but this is his first go at the Mini Transat. Then there is Penzance-based delivery skipper and adventurer Andrew Wood (‘Woody’) who is back for a second crack on board his second generation Rogers design (as built and sailed by Nick Bubb).

Based on track record, the most likely winner in the Proto class is Thomas Ruyant, one board the former Isabelle Joschke boat from 2007, now called Faber France. In his new steed Ruyant has been busy cleaning up this season with wins in the Mini Pavois, the Pornichet Select and last year the Mini Fastnet. South African Matt Trautman, who earlier this year kindly gave us the guided tour to Piet Vroon’s Tonnerre, on which he is boat captain, is also in the frame aboard another Nick Bubb-built boat, Mini Mac, his 2003 Magnen design. In this Trautman has posted a fourth in the Mini Pavois and a second place in last year’s Mini Fastnet. Remi Aubrun should also be up there. A former AC sailmaker he is the founder of All Purpose Sails (v popular in the Mini fleet) and his results include a 2nd in the Pornichet Select, fourth in the Mini Fastnet and third in the Mini Pavois.

Olivier Avram in Peter Laureyssens’ 2007 Finot-Conq sistership to Isabelle Joschke’s boat, now called Cap Monde 2, is also in the frame. This is Avram’s third Mini Transat and Avram this year won the UK Mini Fastnet and was third in the Pornichet Select. Similarly so Bertrand Delesne on the new Manuard design, Entreprendre Durablement, which was second in both the Transgascogne and the Mini Pavois and Stephane Le Diraison, second in the Series class in the 2007 Mini Transat and now has one of the most potent boats from 2007 – Sam Manuard’s own proto, then known as Sitting Bull, now Cultisol-Marins Sans Frontieres.

Favourites in the Series are David Beaudart on Port a sec Guy Beaudart, winner of the Mini Pavois and the Chrono 6.50, 23 year old Sébastien Rogues on Eole Generation-GDF Suez, second in the Mini Fastnet and third in the Transgascogne, Italian Ricardo Apolloni on MaVie pour Mapei, who this year was fourth in the Transgascogne and fifth in the Mini Pavois. Britain’s Ollie Bond should also be up there having had a string of podium finishes during his qualification in 2008 and a fifth in the Transgascogne this year .

The line-up

Skipper			M/F	Age	Nat	Boat	Hull no	Type
						PROTOS
Sébastien		STEPHANT	M	32	FRA	Déphémérides pour une mer propre	291	Finot- Conq 91
Sébastien		PICAULT	M	33	FRA	Kickers	198	Magnen 97
Jesse		ROWSE	M	24	USA	Reality	176	Romanelli 97
Arnaud		VASSEUR	M	28	FRA	l'association Capucine	247	Rogers 99
Pierre		BRASSEUR	M	29	FRA	Région Nord Pas de Calais / Ripolin	348	Magnen-Nivelt 01
Laurent		BOURGUES	M	28	FRA	prim SOINS	346	Manuard 01
François		CUINET	M	29	FRA	PLAN Jardin	412	Bouvet 02
Marine		FEUERSTEIN	F	31	FRA	C2O - Un océan de couleurs	395	Fauroux-Bouvet 02
Staale		JORDAN	M	29	NOR	STORMY	396	Stimson 02
Anna		CORBELLA	F	33	ESP	GAES 385	385	Teixido 02
Juan Carlos		SANCHIS	M	36	ESP	Spasmos	403	Bakewell-White 03
Caroline		VIEILLE	F	35	FRA	Fondation Jérôme Lejeune	439	Bakewell-White 03
Gaetano		MURA	M	41	ITA	GRF 91	437	Fiorenzi 03
Matt		TRAUTMAN	M	24	RSA	MINI MAC	419	Magnen 03
Xavier		HAIZE	M	33	FRA	Interface Concept	432	Manuard 03
Andrew		WOOD	M	36	GBR	www.solochallenges.com	500	Rogers 04
Franck		COLIN	M	44	FRA	LOUKKOUMMAMA	614	Berret-Racoupeau 06
Nicolas		CHARMET	M	32	FRA	La Ligue contre le cancer	625	Canivenc 06
Maxence		DESFEUX	M	34	FRA	Matmut	132	Canivenc 06
Fabien		DESPRES	M	29	FRA	SOITEC	617	de Beaufort 06
Olivier		AVRAM	M	44	FRA	Cap Monde 2	618	Finot-Conq 06
Rémi		AUBRUN	M	44	FRA	AT Children's  Project	630	Manuard 06
Izabel		PIMENTEL	F	43	BRA	Petit Bateau	664	Manuard 06
Mathieu		VERRIER	M	31	SUI	ZYGOMAR	615	Verrier 06
Thomas		RUYANT	M	28	FRA	Faber France	667	Finot-Conq 07
Fabrice		GERMOND	M	31	SUI	stratus	476	Germond 07
Stéphane		LE DIRAISON	M	33	FRA	CULTISOL - MARINS SANS FRONTIERES	679	Manuard 07
Nicolas		BOIDEVEZI	M	27	FRA	DEFI GDE	719	Bertrand 08
Antoine		RIOUX	M	29	FRA	Nouvelle-Calédonie	736	Fisher Martin 08
Henri Paul		SCHIPMAN	M	30	FRA	MAISON DE L'AVENIR URBATYS	716	Lombard 08
Chris		TUTMARK	M	42	USA	USA 724	724	Nacira Design Nacira 08
Jorg		RIECHERS	M	41	GER	MARE	753	Bertrand 09
Andrea		CARACCI	M	42	ITA	SPEEDY MALTESE	756	Manuard 09
Bertrand		DELESNE	M	32	FRA	ENTREPRENDRE DURABLEMENT	754	Manuard 09
Gérard		MARIN	M	27	ESP	GAES 727	727	Teixido 09
Toni		WEIJL	M	39	ESP	GAES 684	684	Teixido 09
						SERIES
Ricardo		APOLLONI	M	43	ITA	MaVie pour MAPEI	426	Finot Pogo 03
Charlie		DALIN	M	25	FRA	Cherche Sponsor - charliedalin.com	435	Finot Pogo 03
Oliver		BOND	M	29	GBR	ARTEMIS	438	Finot Pogo 03
Keith		WILLIS	M	48	GBR	Rattle and Hum	440	Finot Pogo 03
Emmanuel		RENAUD	M	36	FRA	Koati	446	Finot Pogo 03
Antoine		DEBLED	M	44	FRA	RégionsJob.com	455	Finot Pogo 03
Jérome		LECUNA	M	35	FRA	I Feel Good	468	Finot Pogo 03
Xavier		MACAIRE	M	28	FRA	Masoco Bay	472	Finot Pogo 03
Conrad		COLMAN	M	25	NZL	Hottyper.com / geneious.com	480	Finot Pogo 04
Fabien		SELLIER	M	36	FRA	Surfrider Foundation	483	Finot Pogo 04
Mathis		PROCHASSON	M	28	FRA	Manupoki - Avico	504	Finot Pogo 04
Luca		TOSI	M	23	ITA	GOLDEN APPLE OF THE SUN	507	Finot Pogo 04
Bertrand		CASTELNERAC	M	29	FRA	www.bcombio.com	514	Finot Pogo 04
Daniela		KLEIN	F	41	ITA	538 Tacchificio Monti	538	Finot Pogo 05
Henri		MEYNIEL	M	31	FRA	BEVEAC CONSULTING	539	Finot Pogo 05
Sébastien		ROGUES	M	23	FRA	EOLE GENERATION-GDF SUEZ	552	Finot Pogo 05
Hervé		AUBRY	M	48	FRA	Ville de Pornichet	582	Finot Pogo 05
Simon		MC GOLDRIK	M	28	AUS	Compositeworks	587	Finot Pogo 05
Yves		RAVOT	M	46	FRA	PARRAINER UN ENFANT	599	Finot Pogo 05
Francisco		LOBATO	M	24	POR	ROFF TMN	607	Finot Pogo 05
Robert		ROSEN JACOBSON	M	54	NED	NED602	602	Finot Pogo 06
Nicolas		ROUGER	M	29	FRA	EXA / LE MARSEILLAIS / Peschaud	622	Finot Pogo 06
Giancarlo		PEDOTE	M	33	ITA	Prysmian	626	Finot Pogo 06
Grégory		BURTE	M	29	FRA	CNTL - Marseille	657	Finot Pogo 06
Geoffrey		DUNIAM	M	49	AUS	Mad Spaniel	659	Finot Pogo 06
Alexandre		SCRIZZI	M	43	FRA	PHOENIX	672	Finot Pogo 06
Davy		BEAUDART	M	24	FRA	Port à sec Guy Beaudart	674	Finot Pogo 07
Andreas		LINDLAHR	M	49	GER	UMPALUMPA	682	Finot pogo 07
Luca		DEL ZOZZO	M	47	ITA	Corradi	686	Finot Pogo 07
Amaury		FRANCOIS	M	27	FRA	GROUPE QUALITEL	697	Finot Pogo 07
Marc		VERTES	M	43	FRA	SHEBANG	733	Finot Pogo 08
Hugo		RAMON	M	23	ESP	NASSAU - GAES	450	Lombard Zero 04
Craig		HORSFIELD	M	35	RSA	Skyweb Express	655	Lombard Zero 06
Joel		MIRO	M	40	ESP	GAES677	677	Lombard Zero 07
Simon		LEMAITRE	M	34	FRA	BUFFALO	368	Magnan Super-Calin 01
Emmanuel		LAURENT	M	33	FRA	Domaine des Thômeaux	389	Magnan Super-Calin 02
Matthieu		GALLAND	M	30	FRA	Groupe SETEC	219	Magnan Super-Calin 98
Andrea		ROSSI	M	28	SUI	JRATA-CASINO LUGANO	544	Magnen Ginto 05
Philippe		MIRMAN	M	42	FRA	CEPAT	571	Manuard Tip-Top 05
Rémy		CARDONA	M	39	FRA	La Solidarité Mutualiste	641	Manuard Tip-Top 06
Brice		AQUE	M	24	FRA	CNTL – SCUBE sails	671	Manuard Tip-Top 07
Jean Christophe		LAGRANGE	M	39	FRA	ZOUKATI	676	Manuard Tip-Top 07
Simone		GESI	M	39	ITA	DAGADA'	704	Manuard Tip-Top 08
François		CHAMPION	M	31	FRA	POGOMAN	228	Rolland 98
Pierre		ROLLAND	M	52	FRA	D2 MAREE HAUTE	722	Rolland D2-08
Olivier		RICHARD	M	34	FRA	MINUTE	557	Rolland Dingo 05
Fabien		MEYER	M	32	FRA	Roxane	445	Rolland Pogo
Norbert		MAIBAUM	M	38	GER	Coconut Run	338	Rolland Pogo 01
Sandrine		BERTHO	F	40	FRA	HAMTARO	236	Rolland Pogo 98