14JUNE 2022

Still not much wind on this edition of the Mini Fastnet… and yet it is to avoid a sudden and short gale, announced for Saturday 18th June that the course has been reduced by about a hundred miles. The skippers will have to wind  round  a waypoint located at 51° N and 008° W before returning to the Bay of Douarnenez, the first ones are expected to arrive on Thursday 16th June in the evening and the bulk of the fleet should arrive on Friday. At the end of the day, the Minis are in the middle of the Celtic Sea and it seems  that the calm has grouped the boats together, except for a group of unyielding Prototypes, further apart from each other and a few miles ahead. The 1050 Léa Nature is still in the lead among the Prototypes, followed by the 621 Dephemerid  Trois with Arnaud Machado and Maël Cochet on board. The 1065 Irvin, a Series boat, tussles gently with the Prototypes, followed by the Swiss on the 1064 Nath Yachting Squaw. The ridge of high pressure looks comfortable in the Celtic Sea and leaves the Minis with baggy  sails. The NW’ly  flow doesn’t  exceed  Beaufort 2  until maybe Thursday  evening, according to the Arome model.

On the 606 a message from a father for his daughter Clémence : Happy birthday !

13 JUNE  2022

In the early afternoon of 13 June, the first Prototype, the brand new 1050 Léa Nature, skippered by Marie Gendron and Marine Legendre, passed the Isles of Scilly in a light north-westerly wind. During the night, the race was sailed upwind and the fleet spread out over about 40 miles, 30 hours after the start.

After tacking for about 50 miles in a north-easterly direction, the small boats set a course for the Isles of Scilly.  Laure Galley’s 1048 DMG Mori is  overtaken  by Victor Mathieu’s 1050 and 967, co-skippered by François Jambou. Among the Series, two Pogo 3’s  lead  the race: Team Asi 1007 with Nicolas Dupard and Damien Fleury on board, two newcomers in the Mini class who are holding on to  first place, closely followed by the 1065 Irvin skippered by Thimotée de Carpentier and Matthieu Vincent.

At the end of this afternoon, caps and sunglasses are the order of the day for the Minis in the race: in a light wind and under a blue sky, the average speed is around three knots. Passage through English waters is likely to be long and laborious!

12.06.2022

The tows for the race start scheduled for 08:00  begin under a bright, cool dawn. The last ones to leave the harbour struggle to reach the start line in a very light wind, so the start is delayed by a quarter of an hour… but miraculously, all the boats leave the start, so there are 170 skippers taking on  the Fastnet adventure! Newly arrived for  the Mini race and former winners of the Mini-Transat, it could be a hard fight on the course!

The start is due west, crosswind, speed is the key and the Protos are very quickly at the head of the fleet. We find Laure Galley and Alexandre Demange on the 1048 in first position. For the Series, the ranking overlaps a lot more, in the first ones we count amongst  others the 910, with Jean Cruse and Tanguy Bourroulec, who already has a great record in the Mini class, the 1009 with Titouan Quiviger and Maxime Abgrall and the 1007 Team Asi with Nicolas Dupard and Damien Fleury, who remain quite steady in  first place at the end of the day. There’s about a 5 hour gap between the first and the last of the fleet at about 21:00, so about 13 hours after the start. The 747 Proto dropped out due to a problem in the rigging. A good 15 knot NNW breeze is forecast for the night, easing off at the end of the night.

09.06.2022

The start of the 36th edition of the Mini Fastnet is scheduled for Sunday 12th June 2022, in Douarnenez. The pontoons are full of Minis 650, all the registered boats have answered the call and there are 85 boats or 170 skippers preparing for this mythical race. Mythical because they are seeking out  the Fastnet lighthouse in the south of Ireland, 300 nautical miles from Douarnenez and then returning  to the town with three ports. But doubt is hanging over the pontoons, will the course be maintained? In 2021, the Mini Fastnet went south because of the pandemic, this year the skippers hope that the weather will not have the same effect on the course! This 600 nautical mile race is raced in pairs: a skipper who usually owns the boat and a co-skipper.

The co-skipper can be either a former Mini racer, like Benoît Hantzperg, Tanguy Bouroullec and François Jambou, or a friend tempted by this race or a family member, as is the case for Martin Revol on the 835, who invited  his brother to race with him. This family man, after a year and a half of sailing with his kids, devotes his free time to Minis races. “I don’t have the ambition to win, I’m just looking to progress“, says the 40 year old windsurfer.

The regatta currently has about a quarter  prototypes, 12% female participation and several European and international nationalities such as Japan, the United States and Canada. The day before the race, on June 11th, a prologue will be run in the Bay of Douarnenez, to test the boat, the location beacons … and the crews! Indeed, many of the co-skippers have not yet sailed the boat on which they will  race. A light westerly breeze is expected for the Prologue which consists of a small triangle or banana course. “We’ll be on a short course, so we’ll  have to be careful not to damage  the boat before the real race starts” says Romain Gautreau on the 814 Solidarités Internationale. This year, a non-compulsory medical briefing,   and access to the on-board pharmacy is offered to the skippers  by Marine Roland, a sports doctor.

After a summery Prologue last Saturday, 82 crews, 137 men and 27 women, set off from Douarnenez on the afternoon of Sunday 13th June, heading south, towards the BXA, still under the great anticyclone that dominated the whole of France. The tension on the line and the desire to fight it out were palpable, so much so that a general reminder  preceded the start to this 35th Mini-Fastnet without the Fastnet.

The passage of the Raz was already a test for some. The lack of wind left some of them stuck just before  the Bay of Audierne. We even wondered if all of them would pass with the tide.

27 women were at the start, and it was they who took the first places on this first night of the race. Chloé Le Bars and Lina Rixgens on the 1007-Association MJ pour l’Enfance in the Series and Nolwen Pébelier with Frédéric Moreau on the prototype 787 – DECOSAIL were leading the race on the morning of June 14th. This was followed by a long and hot day in light downwind conditions to sail down to Yeu. Irina Gracheva and Mickael Ryking moved up to the front of the fleet, while Pierre Le Roy and Cedric Faron took a good option that put them at the head of the race, and 914-Velotrade, 886-HALTOFLAME / ilots.site and 893-Groupe Adre found themselves in the leaders of the Series category for the descent towards the BXA. It was on this descent to the south that Tanguy Bouroullec and Guillaume L’Hostis on the POGOFOILER made up the deficit on the frontrunners, and it was also at this point that the prototypes numbered 12 at  the head of the race, which delighted many.

From Tuesday morning, after the passage of the BXA, the race became a giant speed test over 200 nautical miles to the tip of Brittany. After 17 hours of close-hauled racing, the Chaussée de Sein was a merciless judge and on a bad tack, the 1019 TeamWork prototype, which had resisted its pursuer up to that point, let the POGOFOILER escape and went straight to victory. In the Series, the match was very tight and everyone was watching each other closely  during the ascent to Sein. “We didn’t sleep as much as in a solo race,” said race winners Gaël Ledoux and Julien Pulvé on the 886-HALTOFLAME / ilots.site.

There may not have been a Fastnet, even if some said that the weather at the finish reminded them of it, but even so it was  a really good  race full of adventure and suspense.

Have a great summer and good luck to the chosen  ones in the Mini-Transat 2021.

See you next year!

Translated into English by www.abitrad.fr

In the Prototypes, the battle for first and fourth place was close, even very close, between the 787 and the 800 (4th and 5th) skippered by Nolwen Pébelier-Frederic MOREAU and Irina Gracheva-Mickael Ryking, who were only 7 seconds apart. For the leaders, it all came down to the negotiation  of the West  Sein buoy. When POGO FOILER negotiated the approach to the mark much better they managed to open up a gap of more than 4 nautical miles over 1019 TeamWork, which had been leading for most of the race. At the finish, they were separated by an hour. Victor Turpin and Antoine Perrin’s 850-Pays d’Iroise completed the trio after a great race at the front after Yeu.

In the Series, they didn’t give up either, especially on the long 200-nautical mile leg from the BXA, which looked like a speed test. They also had to stay on the ball when they reached the Chaussée de Sein, when the wind and sea became stronger. The conditions were not ideal for the Maxi’s and the podium was taken by the Pogo 3. Exhausted and happy to have arrived after a suspenseful race, Gaël Ledoux, accompanied by Julien Pulvé, took his first victory (in Series) on his boat 886-HALTOFLAME / ilots.site. The 893-Groupe Adre – of Cecile Andrieu and Remi Aubrun and the 914-Velotrade of Brieuc Lebec and Charles D’Orange made 2nd and 3rd respectively, 33 and 36 minutes behind the leaders after 3 days and 4 hours of racing.

The race continues! And the final boats are expected at best tomorrow afternoon.

(photo of the first 3 crews)

Translated into English by www.abitrad.fr