The rules

The Classe Mini...

Created in 1994, the Classe Mini is in charge of the sportive management of the Charente-Maritime/Bahia Transat 6.50 (previously known as Mini Transat). The Classe Mini has chosen to entrust the organization of this master piece of their calendar to private organizations after responding to an invitation to tender and accepting to respect the race’s rules. Since 2001, GPO is in charge of that mission. Today, the Classe Mini counts over 100 members including a large majority of skippers representing all socio professional backgrounds, from the carpenter to the engineer, the nurse to the steward, the journalist to the professional skipper...

The Board of Directors that is renewed every year is mainly composed of sailors. They are elected at the General Assembly by the entire members of Classe Mini. Over the years, this board seeks to change the Minis in terms of security while maintaining the attractive and innovative facet of these boats. Thanks to the dynamism and the will of the Classe Mini, the race’s calendar grew every year to become coherent, and to attract new competitors.

The Classe Mini is before all the association of sailing fans, of these incredible small boats impassioned... that want to share wild surfs, the budget’s matter, the days waiting for the wind and all the moments of happiness that the ocean can offer. 

Few rules...

Like all events of the Mini Class, The Charente Maritime / Bahia Transat 6.50 is intending to encourage the practice of offshore racing on 6.50 meters boats. These races are indeed designed to promote the study and development of Minis 6.50 to improve the security of these small sailing monohulls as well as allowing them to access the high seas and to improve their performance. The qualifying races aim to promote the acquisition of seamanship and empower crews to focus on sportsmanship and solidarity among the riders.

- The races' rules:

The boats that will participate to The Charente-Maritime/Bahia Transat 6.50 have to be completely self sufficient. The skippers cannot rely on anyone during the race but themselves. They have to be able to face every kind of situation on their own and be able to join a port if necessary without any external help. There are two categories on the race: prototypes and series boats. These categories determine two rankings. No routing is accepted and each participant has to sign a statement of intent that undertaking them to respect this rule. The navigation electronics or computing assistants are forbidden on board. Also, no supplying or physical contacts with another boat are accepted during the race. Any kind of radio assistance apart from medical assistance is allowed.

- Subscriptions:

The subscriptions are accepted in the order of qualifying dates and files receptions. To be definitely qualified, all the skippers have to end the qualifying course and meet the security controls that are done before the race starts.

- Qualifications:

The Charente-Maritime/Bahia Transat 6.50 qualification process was created in 1999 when half of the fleet had to abandon. The aim is simple and clear: permit to the candidate/sailor to consider their true technical skills and psychological capacities to sail solo. So, to be qualified, the couple skipper/boat has to sail 2.000 miles, including 1.000 miles racing and 1.000 miles training. If the sailor already sailed 2.000 miles, he has to participate to at least one race of the qualifying calendar. The skippers that already participated to The Charente-Maritime/Bahia Transat 6.50 on the same boat are exempted from the 1000 miles training. But they have to participate to, at least, one of the qualification race of the 2009 Mini calendar.