On the brink?

We talk to some of the owners about the tough decisions facing the IRC Mini Maxi and STP65 classes

This week, as the many thousand photographs we’ve published are testament, has been the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup down in glamorous Porto Cervo, the first occasion that all the latest 60-79ft Mini Maxis, have all sailed together.

Eight boats have been on the start line of the racing division – the two Judel-Vrolijk STP65s Luna Rossa and Container joined for this regatta by the original STP65, the Farr-designed Rosebud/Team DYT while the IRC maxis that have been racing on the circuit regularly this season – Hap Fauth’s Reichel-Pugh 68 Bella Mente, Andres Sorriano’s Mills 68 Alegre and Niklas Zennstrom’s J-V 72 Ran 2 have been joined by a heavily rebuilt Alfa Romeo, Neville Crichton’s Reichel Pugh design that has now been extended from 68 to 72ft.

Unfortunately the class still have a number of teething problems, that if left unresolved have every potential to scupper the class. This is combined with the global economic woes that are perhaps the main reason that at present there is no word of any new boats due to launch in 2010, although Rolf Vrolijk, the designer most prolific in the class, says there are some plans afoot within his office for a 68 footer to be launched in 2011 as well as some other 60 footers, although he doesn’t think these latter ones will compete as Mini Maxis. This situation has also not been helped by the problems experienced by the 2007 Reichel Pugh designs that suffered severe balance and chine-related problems, that required monster surgery to be carried out on Alfa Romeo and Bella Mente, while early STP65 advocate Jim Swartz ended up abandoning his R-P designed STP65 Moneypenny , now donated to the US Merchant Marine Academy who race it under the name Vanquish, while he has down-sized to the Melges 32 class . These problems certainly contributed to one of the two other Italian STP65 campaigns that were being mooted a year ago, being canned.

There remains division between the three STP65s now actively racing and the purely IRC Mini Maxis that represent the majority. The STP65 crews crave for a time when they number five boats so that, as prescribed under their class constitution, they can then liberate the running of the class from the Storm Trisail Club and the Transpacific Yacht Club. They will then be able to race without handicap and free of IRC’s other constraints, although it has been suggested that the STP65 might be developed to bring it closer in line to something that is more competitive under IRC. In the meantime the STP65s \ they can only race within IRC and as a result they have optimised for this which, to varying degrees, has put them out of SPT65 class.

There is also potentially an issue over the length range of the IRC Mini Maxis, which at present is 60-79ft but may be tightened to 60-72ft. At some point soon it will become clear that boats built at the maximum length limit will be the fastest, being first to be able to get into clear air and sail their own race. This will ultimately demolish or demoralise the opposition marking the end of the class, unless the Rating Office has a fiddle with IRC to even out this imbalance across the length range.

When we talked to Rolf Vrolijk about this differential he commented: “On paper there shouldn’t be one of course. The big boats look very good this season, but mainly because they sail their own race. I think in breezy conditions the bigger boats should have an advantage over the smaller boats. Everything under medium conditions, smaller boats should have a fair chance. Assuming there were only one or two big boats they would have free air and could sail their own race, but now there are more big boats, so it will be interesting to see what happens.”

As to whether IRC is standing up to the scrutiny the latest Mini Maxi team may be placing upon it, Vrolijk thinks: “There is always need for some kind of corrections, but again how do you want to impose them? I think there should be always corrections to see what happens with sizes in the fleet to make it more balanced, but that is something that you can only do by rerunning or recalculating races. In my opinion that would be the correct way to do it because there will always be developments and developments always work stronger in one size than another size. It is not purely performance. It is more a balance of results than performance. It is always difficult but there should be some flexibility there. It makes it a nicer season if it is more balance. They have a chance to do it – not big corrections but small ones.” So soon the Mini Maxis will be racing on PY!

Boat	Owner	Designer	LOA (ft)	IRC TCC
Alfa Romeo	Neville Crichton	Reichel-Pugh	71.5	1.57
Ran 2	Niklas Zennstrom	Judel-Vrolijk	72	1.565
Bella Mente	Hap Fauth	Reichel-Pugh	68	1.54
Container	Udo Schutz	Judel-Vrolijk	65	1.528
Alegre	Andres Sorriano	Mills	68	1.527
Luna Rossa	Patricio Bertelli	Judel-Vrolijk	65	1.525
Rosebud/Team DYT	Roger Sturgeon	Farr	65	1.525
Jethou	Sir Peter Ogden	Judel-Vrolijk	60	1.46

At present at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup there is also a problem with Karl Kwok’s Farr designed Beau Geste which for some reason was built at 80ft LOA, just over the Mini Maxi maximum size limit. As a result she is racing in the slightly contrived ‘Combined Racing and Racing Cruising Division’ against Filippo Faruffini’s 25.6m (83ft) Roma-Ariene and Danilo Salsi’s new Swan 90 DSK. In fairness, her raison d’etre is more for her Hong Kong-based owner Karl Kwok to compete in the classic 600 milers than the Mini Maxi circuit in the Med, so this issue may be short lived.

Then there is also a potential problem with the circuit as each team/owner has slightly differing ideas over the schedule of their boat compared to the others. This has pretty much scuppered the 100ft Supermaxi class despite there being as many examples in existence as the Mini-Maxis. For example Neville Crichton is keen for his Alfa Romeo to do the Rolex Sydney-Hobart and race her in Europe, while Mike Slade is more interested in his ICAP Leopard’s offshore program and having competed in the Rolex Fastnet Race is off shortly to compete in the Hobart race, while Alex Jackson’s Juan K-designed Speedboat is currently mothballed in the USA awaiting economic times to improve, but otherwise would also only be interested in the major offshore events. The rest, such as Bob Oatley’s Wild Oats XI, Grant Wharington’s Wild Thing (ex- Skandia), the Greg Elliott-designed Maximus (to be chartered to Aussie skiff sailor Sean Langman and lengthed to 100ft for the Hobart race this year) and the Bakewell-White designed Zana/Konica Minolta, now sold to Peter Millard and John Honan and renamed Lahana (after her original owner, Wellington businessman Stewart Thwaites, was sentenced to 400 hours community service in 2007 for tax evasion and was ultimately declared bankrupt in March this year), are unlikely to stray far from Australia/New Zealand.

In the Mini Maxis there are the majority who want to continue with the Med circuit as they did this year, with mainly around the cans racing and the Med offshore events such as the Rolex Middle Sea Race (check out Neville Crichton’s amusing comments below) and the Giraglia Rolex Cup. But certainly Ran 2 are looking to leave the Med and head off to the Caribbean and the States over the first half of 2010 while Luna Rossa and Rosebud/Team DYT may also be looking at more ambitious offshore programs outside of the Med - for the STP65 owners remain adamant that their class will not go the same way as the TP52 and ultimately end up purely for inshore racing.

The hottest issue at present is certainly the one of owner driver versus pro driver. Under its constitution run by the International Maxi Association out of the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda, the Mini Maxi has been set-up as an owner driver class, however the split is about 50-50 at present between amateur and pro-driver teams, the most ardent in the latter camp being Luna Rossa, where owner Patricio Bertelli doesn’t even sail on board instead leaving the wheel to Robert Scheidt, to staunch owner-drivers such as Alegre’s Andres Sorriano, Bella Mente’s Hap Fauth, Jethou’s Sir Peter Ogden and Alfa Romeo’s Neville Crichton. The class is unlikely to go either fully pro-driver or fully owner-driver, so the compromises being mooted are either a double scoring system (owner-driver and mixed) or some sort of penalty for pro-drivers. We have argued in the past that in the even more hotly contested and professional TP52 class the owner drivers have very successfully raced against the pros – Mean Machine’s Peter de Ridder winning the MedCup in 2006 followed by Artemis’ Torbjorn Tornqvist a year later – but this seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

At the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup for example there the owner driver ‘Mini Maxi Racing’ class (where Alfa Romeo is leading) and Mini Maxi Racing/Group 00, the same except it included the pro-driver boats and where Ran 2 is leading.

So the problem is that within the Mini Maxi class that are IRC-only boats and STP65s, owners and pro drivers and owners with different thoughts about their race programs. This would fine were there 30 boats, but with only eight, there needs to be some solidarity or the class will only be a class in name.

So what do the owners think?



Neville Crichton, Alfa Romeo, Judel Vrolijk 68-72

A man with considerable experience in the Supermaxi class (he’s owned three of them) and more recently the Mini Maxis is of course Sydney-based New Zealander Neville Crichton.

As mentioned the R-P designed Alfa Romeo mini maxi was one of the boats found to have some fundamental design shortcomings last year. As Crichton succinctly puts it: “The balance was wrong and it wasn’t quick. There were a number of things and we’ve corrected that now. The new boat feels very good.”

And so it should. After competing in the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup last year crewed by Torben Grael’s Ericsson 4 Volvo Ocean Race winning team, so Alfa Romeo was returned to McConaghys in China where a chainsaw was taken to her. The only remaining parts of the 2008 boat are the deck, the rig and the bulb. The rest is new. In the process they increased her length from 68ft to 71.6ft. Crichton says this wasn’t a case of attempting to become the biggest boat in the Mini Maxi fleet (having had this position usurped since last year, by the 72ft Ran 2). “We weren’t looking at them, we just wanted to the balance the boat up. That was the reason we’ve gone to the new length.”

Crichton also bemoans that despite being slightly shorter than Ran 2, their IRC rating is higher. “We are quite annoyed that they didn’t weigh a couple of the other boats [ie Ran 2] before this meeting, but we couldn’t do anything about it.”

He continues: “The Mini Maxi class is going to be fantastic. I think it is going to grow very quickly. It is a pity the big boats [the supermaxis] haven’t expanded but I think costs are a major factor at times like this, and bang for the buck they are getting more bang out of the Mini Maxis.”

Crichton still owns the Alfa Romeo supermaxi which this summer set a new Transpac course record. However now the boat is on the market and Crichton says until it sells they will only use it for offshore races. This will include this year’s Hobart race but he is also returning to New Zealand with it to compete in the Coastal Classic there. “We are going to have six 100 footers in the Sydney Hobart, so it is certainly not dead there. If we could get some of them back up here [to Porto Cervo] – there is a provision for them to race here next year, but I’m not sure whether they will. I absolutely love sailing it, it is an exciting boat, but I don’t want to sail around by myself.”

As to the future of the STP65s within the Mini Maxi class, Crichton reckons they are “history”. “I think the Mini Maxi class will grow very quickly. It is different teams from the TP52s. I think the TP52s are on a downer now. The cost of doing it - unless you are an America’s Cup team, you can’t do it.”

Crichton doesn’t envisage the Mini Maxis being used for serious offshore races as the STP65 owners do. He admits he would prefer to be sailing windward-leewards. “We are looking at the Mediterranean circuit and that is what we all want to do. It is an owner operated class and basically we make the decisions of where we want the circuit to go and we’ll have a Med circuit quite clearly. I don’t think any of the owners really want to go offshore unless they want to get their boats back to America.” However as mentioned the Med circuit is still likely to take in the Giraglia Rolex Cup and the classic Mediterranean 600 miler, the Rolex Middle Sea Race. “The Middle Sea isn’t really offshore!” maintains Crichton.

As to the owner/pro driver issue Crichton thinks there is likely to be some form of handicap for the pros. “I think it will be fair for both parties. I’m happy as an owner-driver and if I had a professional on I’d be happy too.”

On Tuesday we will publish part 2 of this article with comment from other Mini Maxi owners