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Olivier Mousselon designed the latest Mini 6.50 scow design (above). His first Mini features less freeboard and a ‘gentler’ bow than David Raison’s original ‘blunt’ Mini Transat winner (lower right) – the latter an effort to improve performance upwind in waves. The rudders feature Int 14-style T-foils while the tidy canting-keel telescopes in the modern fashion. The jury is out on deck windage…
FRANCE The Swiss frog
Simon Koster, born in 1988 in Switzerland, began sailing early. But as he was graduating from Optimists through the larger dinghy classes he never lost sight of his original dream of racing the Mini Transat. But first his racing abilities were put to the test at three editions of the ISAF Youth World Championship in the 420 class, twice finishing in the top 10. He then climbed the ladder to the 470. More recently Simon competed in two Tornado world championships, with a best finish of eighth overall.
Immediately after the Tornadoes Simon started offshore sailing and quickly qualified as a Yachtmaster. He has since completed three transatlantic crossings and has raced in classic events like the Fastnet, the RORC 600 and the Tour de France à la Voile. On the back of these experiences Simon decided that in 2012-13 the time was right to realise his dream and enter the Mini Transat. For the 2012-13 Mini seasons Simon campaigned his Nacira
6.50 Go4It. Preparations went quite well thanks to having a good training group in Lorient, coached by well-known skipper Tanguy Leglatin. Late 2012 in the Les Sables-Azores-Les Sables and Simon finished fourth, colliding with a whale on the first leg but winning the return leg back from the Azores. Then he finished third in the Series Class in the 2013 Mini Transat.
Then Simon decided that for his next step he needed a faster one-off design. He approached Mer Forte, a subsidiary of Michel Desjoyeaux’s company Mer Agitée, and asked 29-year-old Olivier Mousselon, a naval architect who has worked with Desjoyeaux for some five years, to create a winning boat.
‘The two main questions,’ remembered Olivier about designing his first Mini, ‘First, how to deal with the tricky 6.50 rule and second, what innovations could be introduced with the hull and foils?’ A Scow nose as on David Raison’s brilliant Magnum was an obvious solution to getting more volume in the front of the hull –
14 SEAHORSE
to make for a more powerful boat and without too big a loss in terms of balance when pressed hard. ‘Our goal was to find the maximum heel at which the hull would eventually “give up” and move out of balance,’ said Olivier. Other differences compared to the Magnum include changes in rocker profile, the vertical location of the chine and the overall volume distribution.
A Mini must still pass two different stability tests. The first is a measurement taken at 10° of heel and the other demands that at 90° the boat must demonstrate a positive righting moment with a 45kg weight attached at the top of the mast… and with the canting keel in the worst possible position (the keel on Koster’s new boat also telescopes to maintain maximum draft and righting moment when heeled).
Olivier has focused most of his development on improving speed beating into waves (something that previous scows have not always enjoyed…), plus finding further incremental gains offwind with the use of better foils.
Mini n°888 also features another obvious innovation: a big, fat ‘split’ coachroof, which makes the boat look like a frog when seen from ahead (especially with two eyes painted on the coachroof sides). This distinct roof divided in two allows a lot of space inside and also slips underwater nicely when the boat is heeled to 90° in the stability test… increasing righting moment through increased immersed volume. ‘This little bonus means we can further lighten the bulb,’ explains Olivier, ‘the saving in bulb weight helping to offset the extra weight taken on with our use of a wing mast.’ ‘Eight Cubed’ was built in carbon sandwich over a male plug at Gepeto, with a first competitive appearance planned for the double- handed Mini Fastnet – an obligatory race for the Swiss skipper to qualify his radical new boat for the Mini Transat.
The future is Ultim Collectif Ultim was created in December 2013 by the owners of the
CHRISTOPHE BRESCHI ALAIN DUPRE
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