Woulda, shoulda, coulda (too late now)

When the 2024 52 Super Series season finished up in Valencia with only one tiny tantalising point separating champions Quantum Racing from second-placed Platoon Aviation, and Gladiator dropping from the longtime circuit leaders to third overall, it must have been hard for the German and British-flagged crews not to look back and rue the big points lost here and there across this year’s 41 races.

And while it seems no time at all between the season opener in April, at PalmaVela, where afterguards remind their teams that ‘every point is crucial’, and the shifty, challenging Valencia leveller, the last few days of the season were a fitting finale to a great season.

Doug DeVos’s team won their sixth 52 Super Series title. The potent, dynamic mix of young and older more experienced sailors coming good just in time to deliver on the potential they have hinted at since the reformatted team first set out in Saint Tropez in early 2023. Beyond anything, through necessity this team has learnt to adapt to change… and then to prosper.

Winning the title again is the cherry on the cake for the ‘new’ Quantum programme which, let’s not forget, was about the opportunity for younger sailors to be trained to the highest level. Over the two seasons they missed out on winning regattas on the last day a few times, but in the end it was all good learning. Next year, following his own America’s Cup distractions, expect team owner Doug DeVos to be back on the helm of Quantum Racingmore often.

Platoon Aviation and owner-driver Harm Müller-Spreer came in with a late charge. They missed out in Portals on a tie-break then took the final regatta of the season, but for sure there was frustration that they got so close in the end. But just as last year, when they finished tied on points with Provezza, Platoon can look back at days with two red flags for why they didn’t retain their title.

Meanwhile, Valencia did not suit Gladiator’s style. The team’s previously all-conquering modus operandi – start towards one end of the startline and win that side, stay out of trouble and use their noted boat speed – did not work so well in the oscillating breezes of Valencia, particularly in a bigger 13-boat fleet. Yes, they can reflect on two regatta wins including the world title, but they were hurting to have finished third overall at the end.

It was sad to be bidding farewell to Gwen and Austin Fragomen’s Interlodge. Austin is due a medical procedure and is not expecting to be back in full shape for 2025. For now he will confine his racing to his home waters out of Newport. They will be missed.

The good news is that Interlodge has been bought by a wellknown Italian owner moving up from the ClubSwan 50, to campaign on the Super Series in 2025 and with high longterm ambitions. Great news for the 52 Super Series circuit, especially giving the Italian fans an Italian team to cheer for. We now expect to start the 2025 season with 13 formidable boats from 10 nations…

And there are more potential new 52 owners observing closely from the wings. Both the known new teams, Eric de Turckheim’s Teasing Machine and Eduardo and Renato Plass’s Crioula Team, proved competitive from the start. Indeed, Crioula missed the Valencia podium by just 2pt to Hasso and Tina Plattner’s Phoenix.

As yet there are no confirmed new builds for 2025, which is not to say there won’t be any. However, what is definite is that Valencia’s flat water showed the new boats’ speed advantage. A fresh-out-ofthe- box new Provezza might well have won the final regatta of the season were it not for a collision which damaged their spreaders; the new Alegre and Platoon Aviation were also both obviously very quick. With the rule remaining stable for another cycle, the strong performance of these three new 2024 designs implies a growing expectation of more new-builds for 2026, if not sooner.

The winning pit
Quantum Racing’s boat captain Brendan Darrer began with the TP52 class in 2005 when he ran Jon Cook’s Cristabella programme. Since then he was also with Rán, but he is best known as the man in charge of Quantum’s TP52 for more than 10 years now. While Darrer might be in charge of executing the constant programme of optimisation and upgrades, he underlines once again that it is the human factor, the people, that he believes makes the winning difference. And even from a distance it is obvious that the last couple of years for the Quantum team have meant a different challenge… it has definitely not all been rainbows and unicorns.

‘At Quantum I am working with some of the best people in the industry, people like James Lyne, Brett Jones and our ex-Team New Zealand and Alinghi personnel. We get to see every day why these guys are America’s Cup winners. They are extraordinary people. James is the most outstanding coach. He is brilliant. Winning is all about people and at Quantum we have so many extraordinary talents.

‘But talent without a lot of very hard work is worth nothing. Our older guys still have the drive and hunger to win, each and every day. So bringing on the younger guys was a new, different challenge. Our guys are all winners and that starts the minute they get in in the morning, doing their checks, looking at data, checking the equipment. They are winners, they hate losing and they just have that drive. For the younger sailors it was an eye-opener to see that brutal energy at work. Even after six Super Series titles the drive is still there and that is why those guys have been so successful in their lives. It is an unceasing hunger to get better.’

And the guy-in-charge… ‘Ed [Reynolds] claims that these days he is just here as “adult supervision”, but he is the voice of reason. As our manager he still gets involved with everything, crew selection, the big technical choices, plus he has this special interaction with Doug. Meanwhile, all the time he could still just pull out a roll of cloth and make a decent sail. And, like the sailors, Ed still has the passion after 20 years in this class… Somehow!’

And the new boats this year… ‘We felt comfortable against Alegre and Platoon initially, but as the year went on you could just see them getting better – as you would expect. But it is still about making progress all the time and we always felt pretty quick. But for sure in Valencia with a bit more breeze and flat water the new boats were fast! By the final here we saw all three new boats as quick as anyone out there, and they were still getting better all the time.

‘Like everyone in this fleet we would like a new boat. You always develop from where you are and we have definite ideas we’d like to see go into a new boat. Straight away the new boats get better in terms of structure, meaning they are simply stiffer.

‘Without a doubt if we got a new boat right now it would be quicker. With the package we have at the moment, while there is still more to come from it, it gets harder to gain those extra few tenths because the TP52 rule has not changed for so long. I guess we’ll just have to wait a bit longer for our new ship…’
Andi Robertson

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