Mini Atlantique: “A wonderful nightmare” – Tom Wehde crosses the finish line

It took Tom Wehde 8 days, 4 hours, 48 minutes and 13 seconds to complete the return leg in the Mini Atlantique. At the wheel of his Mini “Osterrath”, Wehde finished eighteenth in the production boat classification, a good eight hours behind the stage winner, Merven Flao, in “Casper – Marin Breton”. He subsequently moved up one place to seventeenth following a time correction.

Click here for the Mini Atlantique and the results.

Having completed the second leg, Tom Wehde has covered a further 1,300 nautical miles, bringing his total to 2,600 nautical miles, aboard the Mini “Osterrath”. The 2024 Bertrand Vector 650 has served him well for the most part. With the ninth place, so brilliantly fought for in the final sprint on the outbound leg from Les Sables-d’Olonne to Horta Finishing 17th in the Azores and 17th on the return leg, Tom Wehde has more than achieved the goal he set himself.

Expanding one’s horizons exponentially on the Atlantic

He was aiming to finish in the top 20 twice in his first major race across the Atlantic. One of his first comments at the finish line of the Mini Atlantique: “It was an instructive race, a ‘wonderful nightmare’. But above all, it was an incredible learning experience.” Yet the second leg hadn’t gone to plan for the 26-year-old boatbuilder from Team Next Generation Sailing, as he lost his largest spinnaker around eight hours after the start.

The sail, which had already caused problems on the first leg but had been thoroughly checked by him once again before the second leg, tore and got caught in the rudder. This meant that an important option for the fast downwind stretches had been lost.

“Realising eight hours after the start that you can no longer properly take part in the competition without the Spimax was mentally tough. But giving up was never an option.” Tom Wehde

Wehde’s alternative was to adapt his strategy to the remaining sails and their capabilities. The tracking data showed how the young Mini sailor was increasingly veering northwards. In this way, he attempted to tactically compensate for his lack of speed on the downwind legs. The result was impressive.

Mini Atlantique: a positive finish after a mentally tough start

At “Osterrath”, Wehde fought his way up from an initial position in the 30s to 16th place, before dropping back a few places, finding himself in the mid-20s, and finally managing to finish 17th thanks to a strong finish. That final bit of good fortune sticks in the memory. Tom Wehde said: “The last two nights were really cool again. It meant I could make a difference once more. The fact that I was able to make up a few places at the end was a real mental boost.”

"This stage was completely different from the first one, but I learnt an awful lot from it." Tom Wehde

Tom Wehde’s wealth of experience now also includes having witnessed a solar eclipse in the middle of the Atlantic. Tom Wehde is awaiting the officially confirmed final results following the combination of both stages, who had won a talent contest in the winter of 2024 and, as a result, the ongoing mini-campaign, after his return in the late afternoon of 13 August, he stayed with the other new arrivals until the weekend.

The Mini Atlantique organisers then plan to publish the final results. On Friday afternoon, 24 of the 49 competing series-production solo boats were still underway. Three prototype solo boats were also still heading for the Mini Atlantique finish line. Among them was Carla Hénon-Steck in the “Bahia Express”. The 18-year-old German-French woman On the afternoon of 14 August, he still had around 140 nautical miles to go before reaching the finish line.

The infectious joy of Koki Sawada

It has long been clear that two-time stage winner Julien Létissier won the race in the Protos class with the 2023 Raison-designed “Branchet”, comfortably ahead of two-time runner-up Koki Sawada in his Raison-Mini “DMG Mori Sailing Academy 2”. The second leg in the production boat class was won by Meven Flao ahead of Nicolas Le Coz (“Voiles sans Frontières”) and Ronan Jezegou on “Irish Express”, who had won the first leg.

What an emotional moment! Everyone was delighted for the young Japanese sailor, Koki Sawada. He celebrated his second place on “DMG Mori Sailing Academy 2” in the Protos class as if it were a victory; he was the first sailor from his country to complete the Mini Atlantique and managed to shine in the process:

You can find a very French perspective on the podium finishers of the second leg of the Mini Atlantique, featuring some fantastic scenes of celebration and sailing, here: