Dan Dytch shows us his Proto Mini

Tour of the Axel de Beaufort-designed Soitec

While Pip Hare is the sole British competitor in the Series class in this year’s Charente Maritime-Bahia Transat 6.50, so Lymington’s Dan Dytch is the lone Brit in the Proto class.

Dytch, 29, says he has wanted to take part in the Mini Transat since his early teens when the likes of Ellen MacArthur and Mark Turner competed. As his final year project, part of his engineering degree, he worked on a Simon Rogers-designed Proto being built for another Lymington resident, Craig Thompson. “After that I had the bug and I wanted to do it myself,” he recalls.

As a sailor Dytch has grown up sailing dinghies, Cadets and Optimists before getting into Lasers. He subsequently raced on yachts in the UK before embarking on a career seven years ago, working on board large yachts. This has included time on a Swan 601 and more recently in the Wally fleet, where typically when racing he does bow. “So I go from the biggest boats to the smallest boat,” he quips.

2011 is Dytch’s third year in the Mini. In his first year he sailed an older Proto, 312, Night Fever, which he worked on extensively and took part in a few races keeping the boat in the UK. Last year he moved the boat to Lorient from where he raced and took part in the local Mini training group. He competed in the Mini class’ Les Sables d’Olonne-Azores-Les Sables d’Olonne race and following his result in that was chosen to become the new skipper of Soitec, a substantially newer Mini, campaigned in the 2009 transatlantic race by Fabien Després.

Having changed boat Dytch then had to requalify for this year’s Mini Transat. “It was worth it – this boat is so much better,” he says. This season Dytch has been sailing his Mini out of La Rochelle, the start port of the Charente Maritime-Bahia Transat 6.50.

So with Series class boats like Pip Hare’s Pogo 2, cheaper and more popular, why did he go for a Proto? “For me it is more interesting with the engineering stuff,” says Dytch. “I have done a lot of boat building, so I can run the project myself. And it is good to be nearer the front of the fleet.”

Soitec was designed by Axel de Beaufort, part of the Nacira design group, who have subsequently penned a Series boat, of which two examples are competing in this year’s race. “You can see a lot of the Nacira shape in this boat,” says Dytch. Soitec is the sistership of Aymeric Chappelier’s La Tortue de l’Aquarium de la Rochelle which came from Soitec’s moulds, but sports a more modern wingmast rig.

According to Dytch Soitec's hull shape precedes the era of Minis having hard chines, however there is a distinct soft chine and she remains very flat bottomed. “It means she isn’t as fast in certain conditions but then it is a lot easier to keep surfing compared to the boats with the hard chines – they are either going fast or they are not whereas I spend a lot of time between the two,” says Dytch, who adds that the optimum conditions for Soitec are 15 knots downwind. “I can’t keep up reaching with those guys but dead downwind I am as fast if not faster. And I have some ballast as well which helps a lot compared to the new guys, because especially in swell - the new boats bounce around a lot with their chine, whereas I can put extra weight in and get through. I have one big central tank and then the canting keel as well.”

As Dytch’s video tour (below) to his fine yacht shows, Soitec’s mast is a spindly fixed affair with boomerang spreaders fitted to fly marginally larger headsails. He had a new suit of sails this season from Incidences in La Rochelle. Soitec is reasonably unique in having outriggers (for the kite) that can be flipped out without having to leave the cockpit, which Dytch says is both quicker and safer.

“The guy who sailed it before, built it specifically around him and for me it works really well as well,” says Dytch. “I have done some layout changes on deck. But I love the boat down below – it is really well thought out. Everything that is structural has a purpose other than just the structural. It is really well laid out.” Typically on Protos the canting keel mechanism can dominate the entire living area below, however on Soitec there is a relatively short head to the keel.

As to costs Dytch says that it is possible to do a two year Proto campaign with a secondhand boat for 100,000 Euros. He admits that he has been lucky to get the Soitec campaign where the sponsor owns the boat and they decide on a year by year basis who gets to campaign it.

Competitive Protos of a certain age hold their value but Dytch admits that the Series boats, in particular the Pogo 2 hold their value especially well, some selling for as much secondhand as they cost new. “With the development and the changes happening so quickly, like all these new boats with the chines, they have outdated this boat which two years ago was a really fast boat.”

To see the video below in its full screen glory, click on the bottom RH button in the viewer. And apologies - this video is around nine minutes long and takes a while to load (ie: go off and make some tea)