Eleven days has the big favourite Benoît Marie led the La Boulangère Mini-Transat on his foiling "Nicomatic - Petit Bateau". After the cancelled first leg, which Benoït Marie had also led, the Frenchman also lived up to his status as favourite on the main and now only classified leg from Santa Cruz de La Palma on the Canary Islands across the Atlantic to Saint-François on Guadeloupe - almost to the end. In the end, however, the Swiss Mathis Bourgnon came inexorably closer to him.
Mini-Transat: Triumph 30 years after the father
Benoït Marie's head start, who achieved a marvellous 24-hour record in the first half of this Atlantic hunthad melted like an ice cream in the tropical sun over the past few days. Mathis Bourgnon had driven his "Assmomast" irresistibly in the final sprint until he finally overtook Benoït Marie on the final day. Although travelling with a much older Betrand proto from 2017, the 28-year-old from Lausanne never let up in the gybe duel with Benoït Marie on the only "flying boat" in the fleet.
Mathis Bourgnon was rewarded for his great struggle on Saturday after around 2,600 nautical miles, which he had mastered at an average speed of 7.89 knots. Mathis Bourgnon reached the finish line off Saint-François on 8 November after 13 days, 17 hours, 24 minutes and 45 seconds with a lead of around 25 nautical miles over Benoït Marie. Mathis Bourgnon won the race 30 years after his father Yvan Bourgnon, who won in 1995 on the Finot design "Omapi - St. Brevin".
The long list of French proto-winners in the Mini-Transat has thus been joined by a non-Frenchman since the victory of the American Norton Smith in 1979 with "American Express" and the success of Federico Waksman from Uruguay two years ago: Mathis Bourgnon, who had competed in parts of the Ocean Race Europe with Alan Roura and Team Amaala in the summer, catapulted Switzerland into the elite circle of proto-winners on this day.
The Mini 934: a "cool car" with German history
Mathis Bourgnon has achieved this with a prototype that has a rich German history. Built by Offshore Team Germany at Magic Yachts in Tunis in 2017, the boat was once sailed to victory by Jörg Riechers and Robert Stanjek in their first double-handed regatta together. In the 2017 Mini-Transat, Jörg Riechers steered it to second place as "Lilienthal" - the best German result in the history of the race.
Morten Bogacki continued the Mini 934's success story two years later with third place in the Mini Transat. "The boat is a cracking boat, the original from Bertrand and the template for the Vector," reports Jens Kuphal, co-founder of Offshore Team Germany at the time. Kuphal has always followed the history of this mini, saying today: "The boat was actually always at the front when it was launched. It's just a great story overall. I'm very happy for the boat and also the skipper. Mathis is a great guy. He's going to be something!"
The "super-foiler" Benoït Marie, who was expected in Saint-François on Saturday lunchtime and whose report is eagerly awaited, lost out in the duel with the "great guy". Plagued by technical problems, but still well positioned, Marie was ultimately unable to hold off the Swiss striker, who is ten years his junior. Mathis Bourgnon overtook Benoït Marie, who had slowed down considerably in the gybe duel, just before the passage of Petite Terre in the south of the island of La Désirade. Mathis Bourgon crossed the finish line at 9.24am German time on Saturday morning.
Swiss gala in the 25th Mini-Transat
The overall strong performance of the Swiss soloists at the 25th La Boulangère Mini-Transat was ensured by other Swiss sailors: Felix Oberle sailed "Big Bounce - Beltrona" towards the finish line at the beginning of the weekend in sixth place in the Protos category. In the series boats, whose field continued to be led by Frenchman Paul Cousin on the Raison-Maxi "AFP - Biocombustibles" with around 350 nautical miles to the finish on the morning of 8 November, Joshua Schopfer from Geneva was in second place on "Mingulay" - and attacked Paul Cousin. The chance of a Swiss one-two victory in the Protos and series boats is there.
Swiss novice Alicia Anna Pfyffer Von Altishofen also sailed almost sensationally strongly on her 2022 Raison-Maxi "Wallabys", holding tenth place before the final 500 nautical miles to the finish. Born in Zimbabwe and raised in Tarifa, the Swiss woman grew up on and with the sea and has her sights set on the Vendée Globe in the long term. She made it to the starting line with the help of a crowd-funding campaign.
Because communication with the outside world is not permitted in the mini-transat, it was difficult to assess at the end of the transat why Hendrik Lenz and his Vector "Monoka" were trailing the leader by 180 nautical miles in sixteenth place. On the cancelled first leg, Hendrik Lenz was still a strong third when the race was abandoned and was at least a top ten candidate before the start of the race.
The mast-breaking race for black, red and gold
What is now known, however, is that the German-Frenchman Victor David has shared Thiemo Huukl's fate since 6 November: The mast on Victor David's Pogo "Ich Bin en Solitaire" is also broken. Like Thiemo Huuk, Victor David continues the race under emergency rigging. Soon after the accident, an escort boat caught up. The crew reported that Victor David was doing well and continuing at a speed of around 4.5 knots. David still had around 740 nautical miles to go to the finish on the morning of 8 November. Click here to track the La Boulangère Mini-Transat.
