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 Minimum Minis  Some
of you may have heard that 72 Minis (6.50 metres) had taken the start of
the Mini Transat, from La Rochelle (France) to Salvador de Bahia (Brazil)
via the Canary Islands, on September 17.
Well today, only 10 boats are still at sea, while the first 50 competitors arrived in Lanzarote (after 1300 miles) in just over 6 days! Which says a lot about the competition level of this Class, divided in two categories (prototypes and series-built boats). Frenchman Corentin Douguet dominated this first leg, winning after having covered the distance at 8.14 knots of average speed - impressive figure for a 21-footer, I'm sure you'll all agree. Corentin sails a Samuel Manuard-designed prototype (w/canting keel, ballasts, carbon mast etc). Sébastien Gladu came second roughly 75 minutes afterwards aboard his Rolland proto, while Yves Le Blévec (co-holder of the Jules Verne Trophy) took the third place 2h59' after Corentin. Yves sails one of the oldest protos in the fleet, a Finot-Conq fixed keel design launched in 1995, winner of the 2003 Mini Transat with Armel Tripon at the helm. Once again, that race is proving very tight and fast - the front runners have experienced 18-knots surfs downwind, with their huge spinnakers and very powerful hulls. The Mini circuit is very exciting, and I hear some efforts are being made to develop it in North America… I discussed the matter over with the manager of Revolution Yachts, who builds (in Canada) the Seb Magnen-designed Tam Tam, presented by SA some time ago. Seb, who won the Mini Transat twice in a row, seems to have come up with yet another great boat (people who have seen one unit race in the Med last April during the Ulysses Odyssey were very impressed by the potential). One last thing - There's only one American entrant in this year's Transat (in 2003 John MacKee and Adam Seaman competed). His name is Adam Currier, he's a very nice guy now living in Brittany. Check
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