Mini Nailbiter

It was a riveting finish to the Mini Transat For US fans of the class when Chris Tutmark on Mini Anarchy and Jesse Rowse on Reality Sailing drag raced the final 24 hours to the finish.  For the two US Proto fleet competitors to find themselves within shouting distance after more than 4,000 miles of racing is simply awesome, and Anarchists were riveted to the leader board as Tutmark and Rowse swapped leads over and over with 100 NM to go, but Rowse had a hotter course to the finish and pulled out nearly an hour over Tutmark at the line in Bahia.

But in the battle for US supremacy, Mini Anarchy had the last laugh, finishing with a combined finish in 22nd place at 29 days, 17 hours, 55 minutes; just 6 minutes ahead of Rowse in 23rd.  Regardless of the winner, this kind of exciting battle should only increase US interest in this great race, and hopefully there will be a veritable fleet of North American ministas in the next Mini Transat. We game in late to the game with our sponsorship for Chris, but we truly want to be more engaged for 2010. We already have a deal in place for sponsorship with Ryan Finn for next year.  Results are here and we’ll have a full report from Mini Anarchy later this week. Photo of Chris by Thierry Martinez.