What brought you to the Mini circuit?
At the very beginning it was a friend, Sébastien Picot, known as Pic, who took me to do the Mini Fastnet on his boat and that's how I discovered the mini . It was a crazy race, we went very, very fast and I discovered these rather incredible boats. I had already done a bit of dinghy sailing, but not in regattas and I was doing a lot of cruising. I discovered the fusion of the sensations of dinghy sailing and ocean racing. But it took me a few years before I got into it. I first lived on a boat for 6 years and then I went on a trip for a year with my partner. During this trip we went to the West Indies to witness the arrival of Pic who was doing the AG2R. I found a lot of former minists who had been in the Figaro. Talking with them and seeing what they were doing, I said to myself: why not me?
When I came back from this trip I set myself the goal of launching a Mini project.
Your first Mini ended in a desalination, what motivated you to continue?
In 2013, I turned around along the coast of Portugal. I was frustrated not to go all the way and had an even stronger desire to go back and get there. The next time it was with Ofcet. I was contacted by the shipyard who wanted to launch this series and I bought the boat off-plan. I was able to take part in the design on small details and the deck plan but above all in the construction for 2 months with Prépa Nautique and Etienne the architect. I was there every day to build my boat and make returns to the yard. There was a real work of research and development and improvement because we were discovering the boat. It was a really great experience which ended with a victory in 2015. It was great. A great revenge compared to 2013. The whole project with this first boat wasn't just to buy a boat, I really evolved within a team for 2 years. It was great.
And with this new boat? What's the objective?
I didn't want to leave the mini circuit without having discovered the prototype, more technical, more complete with more things to manage. I was lucky thanks to Griffon.fr to be able to buy the boat that was the best and probably still is. You can have the ambition to win this race because of course the goal of the game is to try to perform.
Once you've achieved these goals: winning in series and maybe soon in proto, what will be the next goal?
I'd like to continue in ocean racing. What's complicated is making a living out of it and being 100% focused on your projects. I'd like to switch to the Figaro to become a beginner again and rediscover a lot of things.
Why did you choose this Mini with its round bow?
That was the one! In view of the races he'd done, even if he hadn't been able to finish the transat, he was the best performer. That's what we wanted with Griffon.fr, the sponsor. He happens to be a scow. When I went from Pogo 2 to Ofcet it was day and night. Ofcet was already a much bigger boat. There were a lot of advantages.
Do you think round bows are the future of racing boats?
I think it's desirable, unfortunately on the Class 40 and in IMOCA, they have forbidden to do that. The IMOCA boats have tried to inflate the bows, but now they're at the maximum of what they can do and I think it's a shame not to open the rule because it doesn't cost very much to make a boat with a round rather than a pointed bow. A few more metres of carbon and that's it. I've been able to see in mini that the boat is more breast shaped, easier, goes faster and wets much less, if at all. There's never any water coming up on the foredeck. The boat is light, you can sail very upright and pass over the waves and even if it crashes a bit, the bow can't sink and the water is pushed back in front of the bow and doesn't go up on deck. Up to 30 knots of wind it goes very well.
Apart from that, what are the special features of your boat?
On the rigging I have arrowbars that are boomerang, it allows to put some quest. The forestay comes back to the piano, so I can let go of the forestay and get back on the runners. The mast tilts backwards without having to change the tension of the shrouds. So we can play on the quest very easily. The disadvantage - but not really a disadvantage - is that you can't afford to forget the runner or the mast will fall. But you get used to it very well.
Then the keel is pendular and telescopic. She's not the only boat to have this, but there aren't many of us. It allows the keel to be lowered so that it's always at 2m draft. We use the gauge to the maximum and it works well.
I also have 4 ballasts, two for the 120L and 2 for the 80L downwind that I manage with electric pumps.
I also spent a lot of time simplifying the boat. I've removed some props and runners barbers that I found complicated without adding much. I've removed the adjustment of the underbeard, the bowsprit can no longer go up or down. I've upgraded the rudders so that they can be lifted up and fitted with a fuse so they don't break if it hits. One of the reasons why the boat gave up in 2015 was because she had some weaknesses on the transom, so we had her reinforced.
Another evolution I've made is to switch to "all-solar", two fixed panels on the transom + a third steering wheel for a total of 300W, rather than using a fuel cell. It's a lighter and in my opinion more reliable solution.
Finally, I've done some work on optimizing the sails with X-Voiles. These are boats which are a little bit halfway between monohull and multihull. In the same way that multihulls no longer have spinnakers but large gennakers, in mini we still have spinnakers but they look more and more like gennakers.
Ready to go? How's your last day going?
The boat is ready! The day is going to focus mainly on strategy and the weather.
