Mini 650 takes flight too

Quentin Vlaminck comments on his race (full text in french here below + this translation about foils) :

"On the use of foils: I could use them only at the end, when the sea was tidy. Here it's really effective, but the rest of the time, a Mini is too small compared to the waves. We have to really think about whether it is a solution for the future."

LES REACTIONS A L'ARRIVEE DE VLAMYNCK, PIPEROL, FORNARO | Mini-Transat La Boulangère http://www.minitransat.fr/actualites/les-reactions-larrivee-de-vlamynck-piperol-fornaro

 

Interesting, and significant. Thanks.

This is the sort of thing we may be seeing much more of in the future - a dramatic split in our sport between the boats that 'normal' people can afford and can sail (Minis, Lasers, F18s, IRC/ORC yachts, etc) and the new breed of highly publicised hyperformance boats. In many ways the gap has been growing for about 20 years, and in that time the sport has shrunk quite dramatically in some areas such as the USA. There's now a huge gap between the sort of boats that are being promoted, and the sort of boats that are practical for most people. It doesn't seem to really be a skill issue - it's just that hyperformance sailing (kites, foilers, skiffs, fast cats with kites, canters etc) isn't cheap enough to get critical mass and isn't suited to the conditions most people sail in. Windsurfing went through the same thing years ago, and its popularity crashed.

A little while ago, plenty of people were saying that nowadays, talented sailors would have to get into foiling to show off their talent. If small boats like Minis can't foil, what do young sailors do? How do they prove themselves? Will it become like F1 is in most countries, where many great talents drop out because they can't raise the huge sums to get a chance to show their skills in a competitive class? Will all the publicity keep on going to the foilers, and if so what will happen to the boats that young sailors can afford?

 

I don't think Mini 650s were ever going to drive an uptake in sailing, they seem to be more of a low–end for getting into ocean racing without doing time on the rail on a big boat. So the boats need similar systems to other ocean racers, and foils are now part of that. Whether they are better overall than straight boards is unclear, I hope development continues.

I think the best that can be said is that foils provide an advantage in the right conditions and on the right point of sail, but otherwise are a least no faster than straight boards. But there are also big differences in the skill of the sailors. If Ian Lipinski had won the Mini Transat by 8hrs in a foiling boat, I think there would be many saying it proved foils were a "must have". But he actually won by 12 hrs in a non–foiler and was almost 2 days in front of the first foiler. What would be really interesting is to have the skippers swap boats and see who was faster then.

 

Could be a nice experiment. Simon Koster sailing the 888 eightcube removed them from his boat. I did not hear why but he must have a reason to do so. But these foils where within the 3m beam of the boat. Ian lipinski said something about foils on a french website.

"Pour moi, le Mini idéal, ce serait le mien avec des petits foils qu’on rajouterait pour le vent de travers, ça ferait un effet booster quand le bateau va vite et est gîté, c’est vraiment là, entre 80 et 100 degrés du vent, qu’un surplus de puissance avec des foils pourrait permettre d’aller vraiment plus vite."

If my french is not too rusty he means that he wants some small stabilizing foils for winds from 80 to 100 degrees.

Verdier does not go scow and adds some massive moustage foils
Welcome http://coconuts.is/

 

Proposed translation :
"For me, the ideal Mini, it would be mine with small foils that we could pull out when beam reaching, it would have a booster effect when the boat goes fast and is heeling, it's really there, for winds between 80 and 100 degrees, that this extra power with foils could allow to go really faster. "

My site for English-French translation re. nautical and sailing words :
La voile - Vocabulaire anglais thèmatique - BabelCoach http://www.babelcoach.net/fr/vocabulaire_anglais/vocabulaire_de_la_voile

Great to have again an US sailor interested by this mini transat, after the stunning victory of Norton Smith at the second edition in 1979 with a Wylie design introducing water ballasts in the Mini class : Wyliecat Performance Yachts: About Tom Wylie http://www.wyliecat.com/about/about_tom_amex.html

And to have a Verdier design for this come back is top. As a remind, the naval architect of Arkema 3 is Romaric Neyhousser, member of the Verdier team.

International representation at 2017 race :
Estonie (1) – Suisse (3) – Italie (7) – Irlande (1) – Belgique (1) – Espagne (6) – Allemagne (4) – Pays-Bas (1) – République Tchèque (1) – Croatie (1) – Australie (1) – Emirats Arabes Unis (1) – Grande-Bretagne (1) -France (52)