Mini-Transat: The story of a podium finish that wasn't meant to be

The Düsseldorf mini-sailor Hendrik Lenz - like all the other starters - was caught out by the cancellation of the first leg at full speed. At the time, he was - not quite like everyone else - in an outstanding third place in the series boat ranking. He considers the cancellation of the stage in the La Boulangère Mini-Transat to be justified, even if he regrets the lost opportunity and could have escaped the storm at the front of the field.

Cascais instead of the Canary Islands. Transfer instead of race mode. In the La Boulangère Mini-Transat, the world of sailing has been upside down since the first leg was cancelled on Thursday and the soloists have called at harbours of refuge at the request of the race management. Only the two proto leaders continued their course from Las Sables-d'Olonne to Santa Cruz de La Palma, because they had already travelled far south by the time the decision was made and saw no storm threat to them.

Mini-transat without scoring for stage one

Benoït Marie ("Nicomatic - Petit Bateau") and Alexandre Demange ("DMG Mori Sailing Academy 2") still had around 100 and almost 200 nautical miles to sail to the stage harbour of Santa Cruz de La Palma on Sunday afternoon. However, they know that there will be no classification for them after the official cancellation of the first leg of the mini-transat.

The case is different from four years ago, when Melwin Fink and other soloists had continued the first stage in an approaching storm despite the recommendation to seek shelter. Back then, this request from the race organisers to seek shelter was not directly linked to the official cancellation of the stage. Now it was.

The invitation was accepted by 86 participants, who sailed to seven different harbours on the Portuguese coast. Two of the 90 skippers had previously retired with mast breakages, while two continued on their course. Everyone else is waiting in the harbours this Sunday for better conditions for the transfer to La Palma. The second leg to Guadeloupe, which is more than twice as long at 2700 nautical miles, starts there on 25 October.

Expensive safety stop for mini transat sailors

Among those waiting are Hendrik Lenz ("Monoka"), Victor David ("Ich bin en Solitaire") and Thiemo Huuk ("Europe"). They are in Cascais near Lisbon with 28 other miniists, waiting for the first chance to sail on. There are a further 31 soloists in Peniche, for example. Everyone had to wait until today according to official guidelines. In the meantime, the small community of sufferers in Cascais has come up with the idea of sailing on together on Monday.

Until then, the mini-sailors in Cascais will have to make do with what they have. It's not much for the unplanned stopover. And in the meantime they are a few euros poorer, because when they sailed into Cascais, the sailors seeking protection were immediately charged 65 euros for the harbour master's tow to their berth, even though a Mini-Transat escort boat was there and its crew had offered to take over the service. In addition, the chic marina in Cascais charges a mooring fee of 160 euros per Mini for three nights of emergency shelter.

In the well-protected harbour, the Mini-Transat sailors only experienced the storm raging outside in a muted way. They had other problems to weather in an unusual situation. For example, the sailors initially had no mobile phone for communication, but this was soon delivered to them in the prepared Ziplok bags via a well-organised emergency chain from the organisers.

Lenz in top position hits stage exit

The stage was officially abandoned on Thursday (25 September). All soloists had received this message via tracker: "Stage cancelled. Hurricane Gabrielle is approaching the Portuguese coast. Set course for the nearest harbour to seek shelter there before Saturday 27th." The cancellation of the leg hit those who had achieved a strong position up to that point hard. One of them was Hendrik Lenz from Düsseldorf.

Nobody can take away the respect he earned by finishing third when the race was cancelled. For the classification, however, the performance - as well as the performances of all the others - is lost after the cancellation. According to the race organisers, the sailing instructions do not allow for suggestions by some sailors to at least include an intermediate result in the classification. Despite the disappointment, Hendrik Lenz considers the cancellation to be justified, even though it robbed him of the chance of a podium place and, in his own estimation, he would probably have escaped the storm like Benoït Marie and Alexandre Demange.

It was the right decision under the circumstances." Hendrik Lenz

The storm would not have been relevant for about the first ten boats, says Hendrik Lenz. He continues: "I hadn't categorised the storm as critical for me. But there was quite a lot of breakage in the fleet. It was definitely the right decision for them. And of course you can't cancel a leg for just half of the fleet. A half decision is no good, even if it is a great pity for us."

"Look at the tracker, look at the tracker!"

Hendrik Lenz had not immediately noticed the race control's cancellation message because the quiet beeping of the tracker had been drowned out by the noisy starting noise of his Vector Mini. However, because he had been involved in a thrilling duel with Deniz Bagci for third place at the time, in which Bagci had tried everything but couldn't get past the blazingly fast German, the "Sonmez Global" skipper radioed to Hendrik Lenz: "Look at the tracker, look at the tracker! Then we'll talk."

Lenz read the message from the race organisers and complied with the request to confirm receipt. He knew that his outstanding race up to this point was history. In Cascais two days later, he said: "We all fought so hard, worked so hard. That really hurt." Because, like Bagci and others, he sailed quite far off the coast, he had to sail 140 nautical miles "back" to the north-east to reach Cascais.

"Positive shock" in the first mini-transat

In the harbour at the weekend, Lenz reflected on the course of the leg until the race was abandoned. He remembers how weather reports from the race organisers barely reached him on the first two days and, above all, were noisy. He briefly thought his receiver was broken, but others in the fleet had the same problems. So on the first two days of this first mini-Transat leg, the sailors only had scant information about high and low pressure areas, no detailed weather data and no position information for the fleet.

"We rode on the weather data from day one," recalls Lenz. He first saw a ranking on day three. He was suddenly in third place. "That was a positive shock," says the first-time Mini-Transat participant, who had previously decided to pass the large traffic separation area off Cape Finisterre on the inside, i.e. between the coast and the prohibited zone, even without detailed data. Only then did he switch to the western flank. The combination brought him strong gains "against the trend of the Lorient sailors".

The German had heard from Thaïs Le Cam, who was sailing not very far from Hendrik Lenz at the end of the leg on "Frerots Ad" as a very strong fourth in the proto fleet, that her father Jean Le Cam generally recommends passing the traffic separation area off Cape Finisterre on the outside. The Lenz group's own coach in La Rochelle had also recommended "outside", but in silent agreement with his training partner Nicolo Gamenara, Lenz decided in favour of "inside" - and was rewarded for it.

Bowsprit fracture cannot stop Lenz

"It was super fast," he says, "with a medium spinnaker and two reefs in the main, the little can was incredibly fast at up to 18 or 20 knots." Less pleasing was the fact that the "Monoka" bowsprit broke after the traffic separation area. The inner piece of the plug-in construction had broken out. Lacking a hammer, Lenz "knocked the aluminium tube back in" with a winch handle and replaced the previously drilled-out rivet with a screw. "It didn't look nice, but it worked. I then put the code zero back in. It held," says Lenz.

The fact that he galloped almost 600 nautical miles with the leading boats in the first three days is impressive. Especially after "my worst start ever". After the start on 21 September, Lenz initially had problems "getting the boat going again" in light winds and old waves. He then felt his way into the race more and more effectively. "After six, seven and sometimes ten knots, there was zero wind at Île d'Yeu. I almost drifted into the restricted area, the wind was coming from strange directions," he remembers the start of his first mini-transat.

The contrasting programme followed during the night: a brutal reach with winds of 20 to 30 knots. "The others abandoned the Code Zero. I said to myself: I'm not doing that!" reports Lenz. When he heard about the first mast breakage, he felt vindicated in his decision. He also struggled with nausea for the first time that first night. "After that it was over. I liked how well I sailed with a bucket," he says days later with a grin.

Downwind thunder past the field

His storm towards the tip began after rounding the waypoint positioned in the north of the Bay of Biscay. Lenz reports: "That's when my time began. There was still a strong wind. It was a downwind. I did a 'cinese jibe' with the spinnaker medium, then set the code zero and slept for an hour. Then I set the medium again and overtook everyone. I was travelling deeper and faster than Pierrick Evenou, for example, who had to go deeper than anyone else with his Pogo 3."

He ate something for the first time after a day and a half. On board, it was constantly wet in a way that Lenz had never experienced before. "Apples and peppers were mud, the sleeping bag was soaking wet, there wasn't a dry spot on board. But there was also a real bang in the air," recalls the mini-Transat striker of the pressurised phase.

When he finally came within 20 nautical miles of second-placed Paul Cousin in third place in the series boat ranking, Lenz thought - still without any information about the intermediate results on the way: "Either Paul has blown it or I'm really really fast." The latter was the case, as his sparring partner Nicolo Gamenara on "Red Hot Mini Pepper" and Deniz Bagci were impressed to confirm. They simply couldn't get past him.

Blue and green patches after repair in the mast

Hendrik Lenz believes that the new antifouling also plays a part in his Mini's speed capabilities. "The shipyard we trust in La Rochelle has sprayed Nautix A4 on it. They take care of all Minis there. You can do all the preparatory work yourself, which makes it a bit cheaper," says Lenz.

And the 30-year-old skipper also reports: "I had to climb up the mast the day before the leg was cancelled, and I beat myself black and blue in the process. Two blades were missing from the propeller on the wind generator. Then it no longer turns properly and you no longer have a correct true wind angle. I tried to solve it in compass mode, but then quickly took the spinnaker down and up." The hairy repair manoeuvre was successful on Wednesday in 16 to 18 knots of wind.

"It was the first race where I felt I could really keep up with the fastest riders," summarised Hendrik Lenz in Cascais. What's more, he left opponents behind who were at least equal to or faster than him in other races. He is now looking forward to the remaining section of the course from Cascais to Santa Cruz de La Palma with mixed feelings. Without competition mode, the 750 nautical miles can be agonisingly long, says Lenz. Click here for the live tracking, which shows the standstill and movement of the Mini-Transat sailors.

The long wait for the Mini-Transat fleet

The miniists had a little distraction from the events at the weekend in Cascais with a detour to Lisbon. They did this in sailing gear, Lenz in flip-flops and others in Crocs, because this stop was not planned and nobody had anything else with them. "We're lucky that there are so many of us here together," said Lenz, whose mother had even brought forward her flight to Santa Cruz de La Palma before the stage was cancelled so that she could be there when her son crossed the finish line with the top group.

Like her, many family members, friends and helpers will have to wait much longer than expected for the fleet in the harbour, while the sailors are expected to continue their course to La Palma on Monday. Lenz says: "We might try to set a virtual starting line and do some more serious sailing. You wouldn't believe how boring it can be without competition on the Mini. I already realised that on the way to Cascais. That was a very long 140 nautical miles, even though I had books and audio books with me."