The Transat Café L’Or announced on Friday that Spaniard Aina Bauza (30) and Franco-Polish Caroline Boule (27) were the winners of the third edition of the scheme Cap pour Elles, which will enable them to take part in the 2025 double-handed transatlantic race on a Class40 in the colors of Engie (and a possible co-partner). Just before she set sail this Friday on her mini 6.50 Nicomatic, Tip & spoke to Caroline Boule.
Why did you apply to Cap pour Elles and what was your reaction when you found out you’d been chosen along with Aina?
Until last year, I sailed on the Mini 6.50 Nicomatic that we share with Benoît (Benoît Marie, her husband), and the idea for 2025 was for him to take over and do the Mini Transat, which could give me the opportunity to learn to sail on other boats with people from different. When I saw the launch of the Cap pour Elles scheme, it started to tickle me a bit, but at first I didn’t apply, because I didn’t necessarily have a co-skipper and I had other projects in mind. In the end, it was Aina who came looking for me, it was her idea, so I jumped at the chance and we’re obviously very happy to have been selected.
Did you know each other?
Yes, we’ve known each other for a long time, since we sailed international Moths at the same time, and we met at a training camp on Lake Garda in 2021. After that, we kept in touch, got on very well and met up again on the Mini circuit, so it’s really cool to continue writing a story together, especially as we share the same values and ambitions. The idea now is to do the best we can in Class40. Aina has already racec on a Class40, so she has more experience than me, who has never done it. We know that the level in this class is very high, that we’re probably not going to win the Transat Café L’Or, but we’re going to try to fight with our weapons, we want to perform all the same.
Was Class40n one of your goals?
To be honest, what me really interests is the Imoca class for the Vendée Globe. After that, I haven’t managed to get the financing together yet. The idea was to buy a second-hand boat after the Vendée Globe, and I made progress quite a lot of on this last year, but the budgets are very high. I’m continuing to search in parallel, and if it’s not for 2028, it’ll be for 2032! I’m also realizing that it’s a good thing to have intermediate stages, so in the end, this project comes at just the right time, as it will enable me to learn to race on a bigger boat, bearing in mind that I’ve also applied to all the Imoca teams to do The Ocean Race Europe next summer, but I’ve had no response so far.
“The boat manages to be hyper
stable in big seas”
Let’s talk about the Mini 6.50 project. How would you sum up last season on Nicomatic?
It’s been a great season. As much as I was disappointed with 2023, when I managed to cross the Atlantic in the Mini Transat, but not in a successful way, in 2024 I finally managed to sail the boat well, with good results: I won the PLM (Plastimo Lorient Mini), came second in the second leg of the SAS (Les Sables-Les Açores-Les Sables), and above all, I beat the 24-hour Mini record (322.70 miles, on the first leg, editor’s note), so it was a great season from a sporting point of view. It’s also what makes me want to sail this boat again, which is going to be the case as I’m due to take part in the PLM and the Trophée Marie-Agnès Péron with Benoît. In fact, what I love is innovating, developing and learning as much as possible, which is what sailing allows you to generally, whatever the boats.
Do you think you’ve validated the Mini foils concept in offshore?
For me, there’s no doubt about it, we’ve seen that SAS. On the first leg, I broke away, but on the second, I had a lead of up to 100 miles over the runner-up. In the end, I stopped because there was no wind and my sails were too small, but we can see now that even in the big seas, the boat flies really well and manages to be extremely stable. It’s not always easy, because in conditions like those of the 24-hour record, things move and bang around a lot, but being able to adjust the lift of the rudders means you can play around more, and in particular raise the boat’s nose when there’s more sea. For example, at one point, after I’d broken my medium spinnaker, I sent up my max spinnaker. There were 25-30 knots, but I got through it by removing a little of the incidence behind to raise the nose. All in all, it’s a complicated boat, but you can do a lot with it, and that’s what makes it so much fun.
Does this mean that Benoît has what it takes to win this year the Mini Transat?
That’s clearly the goal, and we’re working towards it, which is why we’ve been reviewing all the boat’s weak points this winter, particularly in light airs. Up to now, all our sails have been smaller than those of our competitors, because we’d started from the principle that a foiler needs smaller flat sails, which is true when it’s flying, but we’d underestimated the time when the boat isn’t flying, i.e. when there’s less than 10 knots. So this year, we’ve decided to build new, bigger sails. We’ll just have to adapt the sails when we’re flying, reefing earlier than the others.
You were at the Grand Rex on Wednesday for the start of the Sailorz Film Festival, which presented the film We had a dream about the Nicomatic adventure. How did you feel about seeing it on the big screen?
I had tears in my eyes when I watched the film. It brings back so many good memories, but also the difficulties we’ve been through since the start of the project. It’s the fruit of four years’ work summed up in twenty minutes. And what me really made me happy was to hear the positive comments people made when the film was released.
Photo : Georgia Schofield
