ROMAIN MOUCHEL FEATURE
By: Danielle BerclouwSuper Yacht Captain Romain
Mouchel goes Offshore Solo!This winter Palma’s STP has
seen plenty of prodigious
tents hiding boats as big
as the 74m M/Y Ilona, and
while these oversized super
yachts had their hulls painted
or their teak replaced, an
equally impressive amount of
work took place inside STP’s
smallest tent, where SY AEGIR
Captain Roman Mouchel
and his sailing sidekick Eric
Santene spent 3 months
grinding, lami-nating, melting,
welding and weighing. Two
weeks ago we saw the result:
Romain’s 6.5 meter mini proto
went back in the water, albeit
now with a big-ger rig and
overall being a better boat
than she was before... and
towards the end of October
Romain is going to cross the
Atlantic in her!Romain got a taste for the
wind and the water as a young
whippersnapper but never
thought that sailing wouldbe for him what it is today.
Not only is Romain captain of
S/Y AEGIR (twice winner of
the Maxi Rolex World) he’s
also scheduled to take part
in this year’s Mini Transat: A
transatlantic race starting inWhat can you tell us about
the Mini Transat? And why
do you want to compete? It’s
the longest of the Transats on
the most extreme of boats
and breeding ground for the
worlds’ top shorthanded
sailors, including Michel
Desjoyeaux and Dame Ellen
McArthur. (Ellen MacArthur
said in 1997: “It is the Mini-
transat which gave me the
taste for Ocean racing. I will
never forget”) The Mini is the
most accessible offshore class
for single-handed racing as
compared to the other races
it’s reason-ably ‘affordable’
to run a campaign. Also, I’ll
be able to get together with
84 (oth-er) crazy Frenchmen
equally as passionate about
Mini’s and single-handed off-
shore racing. I know all these
guys by now, we’re like a big
family and although it’s war on
the water, ashore we have a
lot of fun!And your boat? It’s a prepreg
carbon, super light boat, a
French design and well built
by the boats’ previous owner.
It’s a good boat, one of the
ten best...How are you going to prepare
for the race? At the start of
April we’ll bring the boat
back to France where I’ll beBrittany’s Douarnenez and
4020 nautical miles later
finishing in sunny Guadeloupe,
which means Romain will
be spending 30 days alone
at sea on a boat the size of
a cramped crew cabin. No
wifi, no chart plotter, no bunk
and no snack cupboard ;)
as it’s back to basics with a
simple GPS, VHF, paper charts,
packets of freeze dried food
and a jetboil kettle. There
will be no one else on board
with him to stand watch and
nothing else around him but
106,400,000 square k’s of
Atlantic Ocean, so we’re sure
you can understand why we
had to meet Romain in STP’s
DockBar to hit him with a
few ques-tions about this
fascinating project..When did you start offshore
racing? ’ve wanted to sail on
the mini circuit since I was 16
years old and sailed my first
big offshore singlehanded
race, Les Sables-Les Açores,
in 2012. Les Sables runs on
alternate years to the Mini
and consists of two legs,
France to the Azores and back
again, covering a total distance
of 2540 nm. Apart from Les
Sables I’ve taken part in
numerous mini races but this
will be my first Mini Transat,
the big one...©Yachtiepedia©Jesús Renedo