Up to 30 knots of wind, three metre waves, both from the front. Today will be a tough day for the majority of the 90 solo skippers, and for many of them it will be a pain in the arse. Because if minis are made for anything, it's not for a long cruise in rough weather. They can take it, and the sailors are prepared for such conditions. But days like these still wear you down.
The first damage was already accumulating yesterday, with two Minis travelling to Gijon for repairs. And it is foreseeable that more will be added by late evening, when the front should have passed through. Unlike in the first few days of the mini-transat, the fleet can now be tracked virtually in real time via MarineTraffic, as the boats are sailing close to land and are constantly transmitting AIS data. This makes it easy to bridge the four-hour intervals of the race tracker.
The small purple-coloured symbols, which make it easy to spot the mini fleet along the northern Spanish coast, look like a swarm. But the field is actually beginning to fan out, and this will continue today. The protos in particular are split into two.
There are only a few miles between the top-placed boats and the Swiss Benoit Alt in 18th position. There is still a lot of movement to be expected. But then a 20-mile gap opens up to François Letissier in P19, which will not be so easy to overcome.
Echoing the frequently used image of the rich getting richer, Andraz Mihelin, CEO of Seascape and two-time Mini participant in the Proto class in the 2000s, commented succinctly to YACHT online yesterday evening: "The poor are being left behind."
While Carlos Manera is now just ahead of Federiko Waksman, demonstrating the broadband nature of his Sam Manuard design with swordsand foils, Caroline Boule has not yet been able to play the trump card of her fully airworthy "Nicomatic". Her choice of course also seems slightly erratic. She is keeping the gap to the leaders at around 20 nautical miles, which she can equalise within 5 or 6 hours in foil mode. But the conditions she needs are not in sight.
On the contrary: on the deep, light-winded space courses to be expected after the passage of Cape Finisterre, other, even older Protos will tend to be favoured.
Felix Oberle from Switzerland continues to impress in the series ranking, whose current fourth place is actually worth even more than can be seen in the ranking due to his more favourable position upwind. The front runners are only just over 20 nautical miles behind the best Protos, which speaks volumes for the class of the series skippers in view of the long light wind phase. No fewer than eight of the top ten sail a Maxi 6.50, with only two Pogo 3s holding on to the top spot, even though the Scows have not yet had their ideal conditions.
Lisa Berger, the only German-speaking solo skipper and the first Austrian at the start of the Mini-Transat, has now started her race to catch up; she is currently in 44th position after a hang-up in the second night, which could indicate a repair. If she gets through the strong wind phase well today, she still has more than 1,000 nautical miles to work her way forwards. Her advantage: the gaps in the field of series minis are not yet as big as those in the Protos.
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