Rising rising

As the 52 Super Series rumbles nicely through its 13th season with two brand new boats already launched for the first event in Palma, today we are enjoying a long overdue visit to Newport RI… And there are big smiles everywhere! Adding to the good news is that two more new teams are set to join the Super Series at Puerto Portals Sailing Week in Mallorca, both very much dipping their toes in for the final two events of 2024 – Portals and Valencia – ahead of making a no-holds-barred challenge for the 2025 title.

One well-seasoned team which has not yet gone ‘public’ has secured the former Provezza – narrow runner-up for the 2023 title. The other is well-known French owner-skipper Eric de Turckheim who has bought the former Gladiator. Project manager is Laurent Pagès who will also sail as tactician.

‘Our goal for the last two Super Series regattas of 2024 is simply to learn the maximum about the boat while competing at the best level we can,’ says Pagès. ‘Then we have a three-season programme which includes the Admiral’s Cup in 2025 with our Nivelt-Muratet 54 Teasing Machine. Competing in the 52 Super Series is another part of that overall strategy.

‘We are approaching these upcoming 2024 events quietly, joining the fleet with a low profile with the goal of being fully competitive before the start of the 2026 season.’

Indeed, indefatigable class manager Rob Weiland’s problem right now is trying to find good boats for new owners and teams who want a piece of the action...

‘With potentially 13 TP52 owners interested to race the 2025 52 Super Series and one or two asking for availability of recent TP52s to join,’ says Weiland, ‘the 2025 season looks certain to benefit from a particularly strong fleet.’

Mid-fleet is the lifeblood
What was evident at this year’s 52 Super Series PalmaVela season opener was how mixed-up the fleet is now. With a good start and a strong first beat the ‘smaller’ teams are more and more able to hold their own, examples being Alpha+, Team Vayu and Paprec, with their ‘new’ tactician Loïck Peyron relishing his latest top-tier challenge at the tender age of 64.

All have made visible improvements. Some gains are simply the result of time in the fleet, some are about technical changes and other gains are a result of making steps with their organisation or their operating processes.

On their first anniversary in the fleet since their ‘baby steps’ in St Tropez last year, Shawn and Tina Kang’s Hong Kong-based Alpha+ team is clearly now all fired up and regularly seen in the thick of the action. The Alpha+ project manager Steve Trebitsch says: ‘We definitely are improving – as usual that is about time in the fleet, time on the water...

‘We made some mods to the boat over the winter including a foil upgrade and also added some more structure to stiffen it up and allow us to carry more headstay tension – bringing us more in line with everybody else. Now we have more confidence in holding our lane off the start, which is big, plus we feel we are getting more even generally in terms of boatspeed.

‘Our new tactician, Laser gold medallist Tom Burton, is fantastic and recently we also added Leo Takahashi from the Team New Zealand Youth Squad as helm. He works very well with Tom and they have a great understanding of each other. We had some good moments in Palma but we are not quite there in terms of putting a whole regatta together just yet. But we have already surprised ourselves with how we are going this early in the season!

‘What I would say is that if there are other owners or teams out there thinking about joining us, then while the first couple of regattas can be quite intimidating after that it fairly soon gets easier. For us it’s all about super-tight boat-on-boat racing. We came from IRC, handicaps and time differences, and now it is all about metres and half-boat lengths here and there that make the difference. There is nowhere to hide. It is a lot more fun.

‘Once you get used to the tactics, the dynamics, how close the boats can be, you feel like you just want to learn more and more and more. Shawn, our owner, is a businessman who understands the value of incremental gains. I would say to new owners coming in “don’t get too far ahead of yourself, just take what you can handle and go from there. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes but try not to make the same mistakes too often.”’

Les Bleus, Jean-Luc Petithuguenin’s Paprec team, are a stronger unit than ever this year. The enigmatic Peyron was, as ever, like a highly charged electron in Palma. ‘I am loving this. I may not be the best at this kind of grand prix racing but I am learning and with this team I am like the chef d’orchestre.’ With Loïck committed for the season Paprec will surely be podium contenders soon.

Stephane Névé, mainsheet trimmer and project manager on Paprec: ‘We had a very bad last day in Palma with very bad starts. But I am optimistic for the future. The overall level has gone up and we have gone with it. We do not yet have any data to quantify the “Peyron effect” on the team, but I will say that some guys who were maybe not so super-motivated are now working very hard with Loïck looking on!

‘Of course with his technical background Loïck loves to try new things and he too is learning. But he is bringing new ideas, he is looking at how the boat is working and constantly questioning how things are done.’

New boats
The new Alegre has legs… as might be expected. While in Palma with less time on the water Harm Müller-Spreer’s 2023 champions trailed a little behind with their new sistership Platoon Aviation.

One quiet, unassuming cornerstone of the Platoon team for eight years now has been Morgan Reeser. The 1992 Olympic 470 silver medallist – who finished second with Kevin Burnham in Barcelona that year behind none other than Platoon Aviation’s strategist Jordi Calafat – is unusual among the 52 Super Series coaches; Reeser also continues to coach at Olympic level in the 470s but at the same time continues with his own campaigning in the J/70, Melges and Etchells. In two consecutive weeks before Newport Reeser was in Marseille with his Austrian 470 duo, then Copenhagen in the J/70 before returning to the USA for the Super Series in Newport.

Platoon’s Reeser is a unique coach working with quite a singular team, which last year finally elevated themselves from regular podium contenders to title winners. Without doubt part of the alchemy has been the addition of the fiery Vasco Vascotto to the mix. In terms of onboard culture no team boasts a broader spectrum of talent. From Latinos Vascotto and Calafat to the taciturn Dutchman Dirk de Ridder and more reserved Brit navigator Jules Salter, and indeed passionate owner-driver Müller-Spreer himself, the defending champions are a heady, some might consider potentially combustible, mixture.

Reeser reflects, ‘Actually the good thing about this team is that there has been so little change in the eight years I have been with them. Everyone really does get on pretty well. We have to just make sure that we make the person next to us perform better and that depends largely on your tone of voice and your delivery.

‘Certainly I think my skill is to simplify the day. In this sport the racecourse is different every day, the wind and wave conditions are different every day. And you can get lost in the details.

Above: 49er racer Don Whitcraft’s concentration paid off in Newport RI when the family entry Vāyu topped the scoreboard at the first US Super Series round of 2024. The Thai team went into the last day 3pt behind Quantum Racing, but after watching John Bertrand’s Born to Win the previous evening, about the 1983 America’s Cup, they too had no qualms about gybing away when poorly placed at the final mark… history going on to repeat itself nicely

‘If you get the course priorities correct – and there might only be two or three in a day – you will have a good day. That means going through all the data, the boat performance and the racecourse and figuring out those few priorities that are going to make the difference. I try to do exactly the same with my Olympic athletes too.’

Of the evolving, dynamic mix of cultures, Reeser recalls, ‘When I joined the team the tactician was John Kostecki and he had his best friend Ross Halcrow trimming the jib and his brother-in-law Dirk de Ridder trimming the main; no wonder JK was as comfortable as he could be! John also has a history of sailing with German teams, and he was totally, totally at home.

‘Of course John is quiet, focused and really does not say much at all. And now with Vasco it is the very opposite!! At the end of the day Vasco is more a chatty genius. With JK all the crew on the rail heard before a tack was…“tacking”. Now there is Vasco giving a constant commentary, what if this boat does this?... or that?

‘So we have been blessed with two great tacticians but with two very different deliveries. And I can’t remember where it was, but there was a moment when someone commented, “Look, an Italian trying to calm down a German!!!”

‘The key always is giving each other space. The Olympic athletes I work with spend maybe 250 days a year together, to use a round number, stay in the same apartment, go sailing five hours a day, they really have to work hard to get along. With the more mature professionals in the 52s it is different, it is about always trying to get the best out of the person next to you. With Dirk communicating with Harm, with Vasco communicating with Doogie the bowman. We always have to remember we are bringing out the best in the people next to us and not just in ourselves.’

Reflecting on what makes the winning difference, Reeser adds, ‘Harm is a superb driver. That is a really good start. Plus we are not wanting for anything as far as boat prep or sails go.

‘And now Vasco and Jordi get along like brothers separated at birth. So when one gets wound up – which they do – the other just reaches between the other’s shoulder blades and turns a switch, switches him “off”, and they both have a chuckle and move on.

‘I think we have had such consistency in the team line-up, bar one or two changes, that it has made it all a little easier. It is the same with the Olympic teams, they look over at the other team and think “the grass is always greener, they must get along so well and it must be so easy”. But we all have to work at it a bit. Every team has its challenges…’

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