Mini expert's viewpoint

Second in the 2001 Mini Transat, Simon Curwen gives his views on what the competitors are going through this time

One of the biggest surprises of the last Mini Transat was the second place overall of British competitor Simon Curwen, ahead of professionals like Brian Thompson and Sam Davies.

Since the 2001 Mini Transat Curwen has returned to running his environmental consultancy QDS while still actively racing either with family on their Sigma 33 or two handed with fellow former Mini sailor Paul Peggs.

With no information coming from the boats in the Mini Transat as they head for Brazil, Curwen gives his recollections of what the competitors will be encountering as they leg it towards the finish line.

"My recollections are a little hazy at the moment because of the passage of time and of seniority!" he lies.

"At the moment they are approaching the island of Ferdando de Naronha which this time they have to leave to the west, which is going to put a number of them in a difficult position. It makes Jonathan McKee and Armel Tripon’s position look stronger than Pierre Roland and Sam Manuard. The trade winds are supposed to be southeasterly but when we did it the race there was awful lot of south in the southeasterly which makes it very tight to round the islands."

There is more south than southeast in the trades it appears too this time, although the wind looks set to back gradually the further south the boats sail. "Certainly I was a lot further east than Sam and Pierre are and even from that position it was too tight to comfortably round them so I passed just to west. And then from that position it remained very tight to get round the Brazilian coast which forced me on to a relatively onshore course. My impression at the time was that those further east then steadily gained on me taking an offshore course."

He believes that the boats had a slightly harder time going through the Doldrums this time. "Certainly none of the boats have stopped for more than eight hours at a time, they have always managed to maintain some sort of progress forward.

"I haven’t seen any big winners through the Doldrums this time. Initially approaching it, Jonathan McKee seemed to gain huge amounts, then when he got there had a slow entry into it. Pierre Rolland going further west, he was giving the impression of making huge gains but if you look at his relative position north, he just wasn’t into the Doldrums I don’t think at that stage. He had a slightly better passage through the Doldrums, but he has a much tighter angle to sail around the island [Fernando de Noronha] and to the coast and I would anticipate that he will continue to move backwards relatively."

Curwen says that he holds similar concerns for those further back such as Series leader David Raison as although the next boat in the one design class is some 40 moiles astern they are better positioned to the east. Cian McCarthy, currently sitting in eighth place is in the same predicament.

Last time the divide across the width of the race course was less because there was a gate in the course in the Cape Verdes, so the west to east split at the Doldrums was 26-29deg, while it has been much greater this time. However the bulk of the fleet have crossed at 27.5deg which is where Curwen passed through two years ago.

Curwen's plan for sailing down the Brazilian coast was to be close enough to shore to make use of the sea breeze during the day and to head offshore at night. "Having said that there were no sea breezes at all during the day because it was extremely cloudy and also because the locals were in the process of burning all the rain forest, creating a huge amount of smoke that was both depressing and damaging to any thermal breezes." So two years ago going inshore down the Brazilian coast didn't pay, until right at the end at least.

"There was an interesting bit at the end which I don’t really understand, where for the first time it really paid to be inshore where Yannick [Bestaven] and I gained - by being inshore for the last 150 miles of the course.

Aside from the wind trades being more south than they should have been two years ago, Curwen says they were also lighter. "My recollection was that having got out of the Doldrums, we got a lot more doldrums-type weather down the coast of Brazil and I don’t remember having good strong trade winds all the way to the Brazilian coast. I remember them being pretty light and a lot of thundershowers and squalls, but generally light winds. I certainly don’t have recollections of 15-20 knot winds consistently through that period. I get the impression that they have had stronger trade winds both north and south of the equator this time round."

Round about where the competitors are at present down to the Brazilian coast, Curwen says that he came across many Portugese Men-of-War "which I’d never seen before. I hadn’t a clue what I was looking at to begin with. I thought they were bits of plastic - like frilly Barbie dolls, with their floating plastic sails, because they do look very artificial. It is only when you get close to them and see all the dark dangly bits down below that you appreciate what they are. I nearly fished one out..." Fortunately with sails of 12cm across they weren't of sea monster scale, tapping the unsuspecting Mini sailor on his shoulder with a tentacle.

"Also very significant down there is the fishing activity. There are a lot of fishing vessels and a lot of nets with buoys between them." Some of the buoys are not well marked and some competitors last time got caught up in them. "Their lines can be around 1km long which one or two people were brave enough to sail between or over but most of us sailed round which can make some significant impact, particularly if you hit one and got caught up."

Generally Curwen remembers sailing south from the Doldrums being one of the most tedious and tense parts of the race. As ever it is worth bearing in mind that the competitors have no idea of where the opposition is other than in terms of their distance to finish.

He says that competitors although they are into their third week at sea are not necessary any more tired because of this. "You are pretty much into a routine by this stage. There is nothing that is more significantly tiring than any of the other elements to it but certainly I think it is the most tense part of the race just because of the lack of knowledge and there is probably a fair amount of changing distances between the boats as they take onshore and offshore routes and you know nothing about where your competitors."