Mini Transat: waiting for the start, here are the Italians at the start

Postponed the start of the 2013 edition of the Mini Transat. The 84 registered crews will have to wait for a favorable weather window. A major depression in the Bay of Biscay could hit the fleet at one of the worst points of the course, north of Cape Finisterre. In order to allow the soloists to reach Lanzarote (departing from Douarnenez), the Race Committee consulted the participants and decided to postpone the start: today at 6 p.m. a briefing is scheduled with the participants to decide the “papable” days for the start. It is rumored that the cannon shot could be given on Thursday or Friday. With seven competitors entered, Italy again this year is the nation with the largest number of representatives at the start of the Mini Transat, of course after France (which boasts an impressive 57, out of 84 total entries).

THE ITALIANS IN THE REGATTA
Of the 84 starters, for the first time more than 30 percent are not French. There are 14 nations represented and the Italian fleet is the largest among the “foreign” ones, with 2 competitors in the Proto category and 5 in the Serie. Only once, in 1979, did the victory go not to a transalpine navigator, but to the American Norton Smith. A dominance that, so they say in France, may be broken again this year. Among the favorites (he himself does not refuse to be referred to as such) is Italian Giancarlo Pedote with Prysmian-747, the prototype he won two years ago carried by its designer, David Raison. Also among the Protos is Michele Zambelli, 23 (one of the youngest in the entire fleet), with one of the oldest boats (launched in 2001). Among the Series races are Alberto Bona, Federico Cuciuc, Federico Fornaro, Andrea Iacopini and Davide Lusso. Let’s get to know them in detail, in interviews conducted in Douarnenez by FIV correspondent Christophe Julliand:

Giancarlo Pedote
37, ITA 747 – Prysmian (prototype Raison 2010). Fourth in the 2009 Transat 650 in a production boat, formerly under Prysmian colors, Giancarlo Pedote returns with last year’s winning prototype. After a season on monotype Figaro in 2010, he spent the last two years in Lorient preparing at the center founded and directed by Tanguy Le Glatin (Lorient Grand Large). He has achieved excellent results and is considered among the favorites.

Michele Zambelli
23 years old, ITA 342 – Fontanot (Lorenzi 2001 prototype). In a sense, Michele has already competed in the Mini Transat, the one in 2009 when he had boarded one of the support boats that follow the fleet for assistance. His boat is the former Mini with which Alessandro Zamagna finished the 2003 MT. She is certainly not the newest, nor the best performing of the fleet, however, he knows her well and has taken part in several Atlantic regattas with her to prepare.

Andrea Iacopini
35, ITA – UmpaLumpa (Pogo 2/Finot&Conq series). He took his first steps with the Salt Adrenaline Tea, then moved on to his current boat, the Pogo 2 OompaLumpa. He is behind the creation of the Roma Solo Race, the first edition of which was held this year, and the Mini training center in Genoa with instructors Andrea Caracci and Riccardo Apolloni, two former Transat participants.

Alberto Bona
26, ITA 507 – Onlinesim.it (Pogo 2/Finot&Conq series). With a small self-built boat as a boy, he made a solo crossing from La Spezia and Macinaggio, Corsica. A few years later, he tried his hand at the Mini class with good results in the Mediterranean. He participated in two early season regattas in the Atlantic, the TransGascogne and the MAP Trophy.

David Luxury
38 years old, ITA 600 – Mastep (Zero/Lombard series). A childhood dream: to cross the Atlantic, solo, with one’s own boat. A dream about to come true. A great regular on the Mini circuit in the Mediterranean, Lusso completed his preparation by participating in some early-season regattas in the Atlantic, including the Mini Fastnet in doubles.

Federico Cuciuc
35, ITA 556 – Yoursail (Dingo 1/Rolland series). After a background in drifting and on offshore boats, he has been thinking about the Mini Transat for more than a decade and has been preparing for this race by participating in circuit races in the Mediterranean.

Federico Fornaro
37, ITA 568 Raw News – Jolie Rouge (Pogo 1/Rolland series). When he bought his boat, a first-generation Pogo, Fornaro was by no means thinking of the Mini Transat, but rather of cruising, as a family. Then he got caught up in the demon of Mediterranean racing and here he is on the docks in Douarnenez…

MINI 6.50, A GREAT LITTLE BOAT
Conceived by Englishman Bob Salmon in 1977, precisely to counteract the gigantism (increasingly larger and more expensive boats) that was beginning to characterize ocean racing at the time, the Mini Transat is one of the most extreme solo transatlantic races, because competitors must tackle it on “hulls” just 6.50 meters long; the Mini 6.50 class boats. Small boats, but, especially in the prototype category (the other being production hulls), technologically amazing, so much so that they look like IMOCA 60s (the 18.28-meter-long boats used in the Vendée Globe, the non-stop solo round-the-world race) on a smaller scale. Indeed, many of the solutions adopted by larger boats today were invented and tested on the Mini 6.50 itself. The most striking example is that of 1991, when a young Michel Desjoyeaux (who was then 26 years old and a few years later would win two solo round-the-world regattas) came to the start with an old prototype, but extensively modified and fitted with a lot of “strange stuff” for the time: from the steerable bowsprit to the asymmetric spinnaker, from the carbon mast to the canting keel.

4,000 MILES IN TWO STAGES
The Mini Transat starts Oct. 13 from Douarnenez (on France’s Atlantic coast) and takes competitors back to the historic route after it ended for a few editions in Brazil (in Salvador de Bahia), with the crossing of the Equator. The route then returns to the Atlantic route from east to west, always divided into two stages. The first fraction will end in Puerto Calero, on the island of Lanzarote (Canary Islands), after 1,200 miles of sailing; two weeks or so of rest and the “minists” will set off again on November 9 for Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe where, after 2,800 miles of the Atlantic, the finish line awaits them.