Mini-Transat 2021: Lennart Burke and Lina Rixgens at the finish of the first stage

Lennart Burke and Lina Rixgens have reached the finish of the first leg of the Mini-Transat off Santa Cruz de La Palma. This means that after Melwin Fink, two more of the four German skippers have arrived in the race. Marc Siewert can make it on Tuesday.

Lennart Burke sailed to the finish line off the Canary Island on Saturday morning in tenth place in the series boat ranking. The 23-year-old took 11 days, 17 hours, 7 minutes and 53 seconds to cover the 1350 nautical miles from Les Sables-d'Olonne.

Burke explained how the race went for him and what damage his boat suffered while a first heavy front was still passing over the field on the Bay of Biscay in a video message on Facebook shortly after his arrival.

"Always stay tuned"

Burke reports that his pulpit broke, causing the jib attachment and the bowsprit to break. In 35 to 45 knots of wind and "huge seas", it was impossible to repair the damage, so he was only able to continue sailing under sail for one night. As a result, he fell far behind in the field.

The stopover to weather the second front in the harbour meant a kind of restart for Burke - for a challenging, top-sailed race to the Canary Islands. "That was super, super exhausting," says Burke. He made a tactically clever decision at the start and positioned himself well. After that, he had to defend his position. His goal was to make as few mistakes as possible and always stay in the lead - or wait for the others to make mistakes. But the competition around him was also sailing at the highest level. "I made at least eight gybes a day," says Burke in front of the Atlantic backdrop on La Palma.

The skipper of the Pogo 3 "Vorpommern" was very satisfied with his result - tenth place out of 65 series boats that started. The ambitious young sailor has set himself the goal of finishing in the top ten overall.

Arrived despite double rudder breakage

Behind the only German sailor in the field, Lina Rixgens on the Wevo 6.5 "Avanade", lies a race with special challenges and further setbacks. Nevertheless, the experienced mini-skipper mastered it with aplomb and crossed the finish line on Sunday evening - after 13 days, 5 hours, 41 minutes and 40 seconds in the race.

In a short statement on her Facebook page, the solo sailor explains why the final hours of the regatta were once again a particularly tough test.

As a result, the fitting on one of the two rudder blades broke on Thursday. Rixgens managed to secure it, avoid further damage to the boat and continue sailing with just one rudder. During the night from Friday to Saturday, however, the fitting on the second rudder also broke at over 20 knots - Rixgens was unable to manoeuvre. She was able to secure the second rudder and sail the last 200 nautical miles to the finish under her own steam.

Catching up with Fink and Kargl

After young German skipper Melwin Fink and Austrian Christian Kargl took first and second place in the series boat classification, Hugo Dhallenne, one of the French top favourites, finally sailed to third place in the series boat classification.

After his restart from the harbour of Baiona, the skipper of the maxi 6.50 "YC Saint Lunaire" started an impressive race to catch up with the runaway duo Fink and Kargl. However, their lead was too big for Dhallenne to catch up, even though he managed to make up around 30 nautical miles on the leaders every day. He reached the finish on Friday after 11 days, 2 hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds, thus confirming his status as favourite - despite coming third in this first leg.