On the brink? Part 2

Sir Peter Ogden, Andres Soriano, Roger Sturgeon, Hap Fauth and Wolfgang Schutz give their views on the Mini Maxi class

This article follows on from part 1 here




Sir Peter Ogden, Jethou , Judel-Vrolijk IRC 60

One of the newest members of the Mini Maxi owners club, is ex-Morgan Stanley MD and Computacenter CEO, Sir Peter Ogden, who this year replaced his beloved Swan 601 Spirit of Jethou with the new Judel-Vrolijk IRC 60, Jethou (Jethou being the Channel Island Ogden owns) built, as Ran 2 was, by Green Marine in Lymington.

“It is a relatively new class so it is good to be early into it and obviously the boats are very exciting boats to sail,” Ogden says of the Mini Maxi class. “And the owners are quite a nice group of people. We all seem to get on and chat - on shore it is not that vicious! I am very keen on the owner-driver rule – there is some debate in the group about how that might modify, but that was one of the reasons for my choosing the Mini-Maxi: because it was an owner-driver class.”

Ogden reckons how to solve the pro/amateur driver issue could run and run, as it will be impossible to get unanimous agreement one way or the other. “There are some principles which are straightforward – we all want to race together, we all want to go around the same race track…” Although the only event to be attended class-wide (as is the case this year) may be Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup 2010. Ogden is very very keen on the Mediterranean inshore circuit, but seems set to push this to doing Giraglia and the Middle Sea, albeit latter next year and not this. He says they might even sail the Newport-Bermuda.

“We also want to encourage more people to come into the class. We’d also like clarity of rules. We get things like ‘should we let Beau Geste sail with us?’ Well the answer is ‘no’, not because we don’t like Beau Geste, but we set a size. As Neville said: ‘can I bring my 100 then?’ But I’d like to see the owner-driver stay as it is. I hate the idea of penalties, because whatever penalty you come up with people will either say it is unfair, too much or too little. So I don’t have an answer to it.”

Andres Soriano, Alegre , Mills IRC 68

Based in the Philippines, Sorriano has been racing competitively for several decades and like several of his peers bought into the Mini Maxi class because of the owner-driver element. As he puts it: “The President of the [International Maxi] Association argues the point for professional drivers because of the size of boats, but he has a Wally that is huge [Klaus Peter Offen’s 30.5m Wally Y3K]. That is an excellent point: the safety factor. But at this size, this is probably the top end for a non-professional driver to handle safely. That is the reason why I got into this class.”

As to the split between owner/pro driver Sorriano confirms it is four and four - ish. “ Rosebud, the owner [Roger Sturgeon] does drive, but he prefers to navigate. I’m not sure how you handle that. The pressure has been put on it by the professional driven boats, but one of them next season for six months won’t be around. Ran will be in the States, Newport-Bermuda, Cork, etc. It is hard for them to dictate if they aren’t going to participate in 100% of the season. And the other two boats are representatives of America’s Cup campaigns [he refers to Luna Rossa and Container]. And they want the practice, so they shouldn’t really care about the silverware at the end of the rainbow. If you turn the equation the other way around, there might three owners that are willing to build these boats if they know the amount of pressure that has been placed to change the rule. The outcome of this will determine whether you get Italian owners building them. They are keen to owner-drive, otherwise the temptation is - ‘forget it, we’ll go into the Melges’. It is a very trucky situation at the moment.”

Like Crichton, Sorriano is pretty happy with the way IRC differentiates between the boats, however “I think what has to happen is that there is a standard measurement and weight by the same person, to take out the rumour-mongering.”

Otherwise Sorriano says he is really enjoying the Mini Maxi class. “It is very different. It is super-top level competition to sail and fun boats to sail.”



Hap Fauth, Bella Mente , Reichel-Pugh IRC 68

As mentioned, like Neville Crichton with Alfa Romeo, so US owner Hap Fauth has had to have the chain saw taken to his R-P 68 back at New England Boatworks over the winter to sort out the boat’s balance and chine issues.

“We sailed her in the last Bermuda race and brought her back to Newport, pulled it and basically took off the last 30ft from the transom forward,” says Fauth. “We reshaped the bottom - built it in a female mould so that we could reshape the aft-section of the boat in that mould and then build a carbon fibre piece and slipped it in, moved the keel forward and the mast aft. We took almost a metre off the top of the mast and a foot off the bowsprit, so it was a major job. All the chainplates came aft too…”

The work was finished in March and the boat shipped to Palmavela for the first Mini Maxi event of the season.

Unlike Alfa Romeo, Fauth says they didn’t choose to sort out the balance problems by lengthening Bella Mente. “We have gone to a flat head main, but basically we have the same boat. There is less displacement in the stern sections. This boat had pretty hard chines when she was originally launched and we got rid of those - they didn’t affect our performance very well. The placement of those hard chines, I think was really disadvantageous to us. When we heeled over we lost rudder angle and it was very hard to hold a lane, your bow would be pushed down the more you heeled. It is a vast improvement now. She is still a narrow entry boat.”

While Crichton comes up to Europe from down under to race, Fauth and many of his crew, led by Rob Miles and Tom Mclaughlin, have been commuting in from the US. “It has been fantastic. The clubs have been very hospitable. The regattas have been well run and we have had great competition in our class. It has been a wonderful to have Alfa join us for this last regatta. It is a good group, a great class. The Mini Maxis are really fun to sail, they get up on a step like the TP52s, so when the wind blows a little bit – they are wild. And it has been very competitive - any one of these boats can win any regatta. It is as simple as that. And different boats prefer different conditions. We are probably a better light air boat as is Alegra. I think Ran and Alfa are better in stronger conditions.”

Fauth says their plans are to compete in the Rolex Middle Sea Race and then he reckons they will probably ship the boat back to the US. Although she is too deep to compete at Key West, he might sail her at Block Island Race Week and the New York YC Spring Regatta as warm-ups for the Bermuda Race, before heading for the Med to compete in the 2010 Mini Maxi circuit in the Med. But this program could change. “I’d love to sail this all winter. I’d love to take it down under and sail. I would do Sydney Hobart. There is so much good racing down there. We’ll go down early and stay late! That is one of the options I have after the Middle Sea Race - we could ship. We are getting this behind us and then we’ll decide what we are going to do. There are some announcements of this new championship series. I don’t know all the locations and then is what everyone else is going to do. We should go as a herd! So we just looking at the options. The boat is together and my plan is certainly to race it hard over the next 12-18 months.” And then build a new one… We suggest he probably needs two boats now. He has been racing the boat so much this year that he even has some discrete sponsorship stickers on the side of his boat’s navy blue hull. “They are companies from the States that have helped us along. We are very happy with them and they have been happy with us.”

As to the pro v owner driver discussion, Fauth is firmly in the latter camp. “One of the reasons I built this was because of the owner-driver rule,” he says. “There is no question the pro-drivers are much better than we are. I work for a living! When I’m not here I’m in my office. So I think just have two different scoring systems makes ultimate sense. Let the critical mass build and then we’ll go on to the next step. The most important thing is to get all of us on to the start line at the same time. We like racing against each other, the boats are fairly even, it has really been fun.”



Roger Sturgeon, Rosebud/Team DYT , Farr STP65

As was the case with the TP52s, prior to them being adopted by the MedCup, Florida-based Roger Sturgeon was one of the early adopters in the STP65 class, with the first example to be launched in which he subsequently won the Rolex Sydney Hobart in 2007.

“It seems to be a nice size of boat for a lot of activities and a lot of fresh ideas, a lot of energy, a lot of intense competition,” says Sturgeon of where he feels the class. “We’ll see where it goes. I haven’t seen the same in the States as I’ve seen here, but we hope it will go better and better there. When we are enough owners we will take control of the class and probably modify the rules to be even more IRC-friendly, I would suspect. We still want to have a level playing field as much as possible but there is no particular reason to limit yourself from doing well against others [ie other IRC boats]. We’d like to find the best of both worlds.” In other words, being able to race boat for boat under the STP65 rule, while also being competitive under IRC in bigger fleets.

Sturgeon acknowledges that his boat is currently out of class, but not that far away. He considers that the STP65 that have been racing this week at the Maxi Yacht Rolex Cup have been pretty comparable. “You are trying to beat the other boat, boat for boat where possible,” Sturgeon continues. “But handicap racing is handicap racing and you do everything a little differently just for it - you have to play that game too. There are a lot of limitations under IRC rules where you have a certain number of sail choices and the like.”

Wolfgang Schutz, Container , Judel Vrolijk STP65

Udo Schutz, owner of the STP65 returned to Grand Prix yacht racing earlier this year following a break since the heyday of the IOR 50. “I had a long break, maybe too long! I have sometimes the feeling that I am learning again, but I learn fast.”

On board Container, typically Marcus Weiser helms, and Schutz for the most part, seems happy not to have this responsibility. “For me it is not the main thing,” he says of helming the boat. “For me the main thing is that we have good competition in a competitive boat. Also maybe I don’t have enough time to spend the whole season doing 10 races or 10 weeks, because I still have a company.”

He continues on the owner v pro driver topic: “There are a lot of ideas how to handle it, because a lot of the owners want the owner-driver rule and they want to give a penalty to the professional drivers. I would prefer a one design class, so that it is the hardest competition, but for the moment there aren’t enough boats and the situation with the economy and the world markets slows down everything and makes it more difficult. So they have to find a solution.”

As to the future of the STP65 he reckons that it does have one, although thanks to the downturn in the economy it seems likely they will have to wait until 2011 at the earliest before the owners can take over the class.