Fresh paint

As the Super Series fleet returns to Europe after a highly successful sojourn in Newport RI, all eyes are on Ergin Imre’s new Provezza 11which was launched on schedule by builders King Marine, leaving enough time for the race crew to fit in several days of training ahead of the new Vrolijk design’s first regatta, Puerto Portals Sailing Week.

Meanwhile, this season we have been watching the two other new 2024 boats, the similar but not identical Botín designs Alegre and Platoon Aviation, which have shown flashes of excellent pace. But a TP52 is a complex beast and can take months or even a year or two to hit peak performance… both Alegre and Platoon are still early in the learning-optimisation phase.

Interestingly, while Vrolijk’s new Provezza 11 is a development of the successful Provezza 10, Botín has gone further with an allnew hull family. As such there is some confidence in the Provezza camp that their new boat will carry forwards most of the best performance characteristics of their previous boat while addressing perceived weaknesses. Cole Parada of the Provezza speed team observes, ‘So far I think the other new boats are still very much on the learning curve and we too have so much to learn. But we know our benchmark, P10, which was such a good boat over the years, so now it is about adapting this boat to our sailing style.

‘In the new boat differences are very slight. The most obvious thing is it is a different red! But it is an evolution of the same design family while Botín has taken a much bigger step and his new boats have a different hull shape. We did not do that. We prefer evolution.

‘The structure of P11 is very similar too, with perhaps a handful of new small nuances. We have played a little with the weight distribution of the hardware we are using in the systems, refining on from where we were with P10 in her best trim.’

Rig specialist Parada won the Super Series with Azzurra before joining the Provezza team. ‘Here we are starting another loop to find a rig set-up that we like while incorporating a number of novel features in the spar. We know how we sail the boat and how we want to sail the boat and have adapted the rig design to suit.

‘We like to play the rig and the controls. If you go for the standard Southern Spars rig you get a more “automatic” rig; but we want to play around more. That’s always been a Provezza thing!’

Parada concludes, ‘We are not nervous having carefully watched the new Botín boats, especially given how different they are from their previous boats. Honestly, performance-wise I still don’t think they are anywhere close to full potential, but what you can see already is that Botín’s 2024 boats look happier in stronger conditions than in the lighter stuff.’

Main picture: Without a 3D laser scan it’s hard enough to tell one current TP52 from another, but the oh-so smoothly radiused stern on Judel/Vrolijk’s new Provezza to the naked eye shows a different approach from Botín’s Platoon (below) with its flat aft run amidships. You cannot judge any new TP52 until near the end of their first year of racing, but we doubt the Platoon team ever expected to be adding more area to their keel fin within months of their new boat’s first race

After missing out on the 2023 title because of a standing rigging failure in the last regatta the Provezza team are more determined than ever to deliver the 2025 circuit title for owner Imre. One of the quiet, understated lynchpins of this team is Kiwi tactician Hamish Pepper, who alongside the Super Series also manages to continue a successful career in several other top-level classes.

‘For us learning the boat and its strengths and weaknesses is the priority over these first two regattas and only then try and improve the boat for next year. As I see it the new Botíns have been struggling a little bit in the light, but they are already taking steps to improve the situation. Platoon already made a keel alteration with Alegre following suit, no small thing on a new TP52. Meanwhile, everyone is working hard with rig rake and rudders and new sail combinations.

‘The way the Super Series ended last year was brutal. Personally I felt so bad for Ergin, he is such a special owner and it still hurts me how it played out, losing a 17pt lead with a rig failure – which is now almost unheard of in these boats with the high level of prep.

‘Even now it still hurts, when I think how unfortunate we were with the rig. Now we are motivated more than ever, I want to win it for Ergin, just as I do for all the boats I sail on. It is going to be nice to be out there on the water on P11, I feel good about it.’

If there are other owners and teams now thinking of building new – and there is plenty of talk – the consensus generally has been to wait and see how the new Provezza goes before making any final decisions. Thus any new build schedule would necessarily follow Provezza 11’s timeline, so looking now to a mid-season 2025 launch.

The 52 Super Series remains in rude health with 13 boats heading to Puerto Portals as I write. Successes for the new world champions and circuit leader Tony Langley’s Gladiator, as well as for Newport Trophy winners, the Whitcraft family and Vayu, have definitely driven up interest from other owners who may be considering stepping into this arena. Two new teams have already made the commitment – the French Teasing Machine and Brazil’s Crioula team.

The main barrier to entry now is finding good-quality, competitive boats; and that supply is of course in part dependent on new boats being built. Meanwhile, the good news is that all of the current teams have committed to carrying on into 2025.

But back to TP52 and Super Series stalwart Tony Langley, who is finally being rewarded for his long years of commitment and also his late-2023 decision to change the configuration of the Gladiator team, bringing in Guillermo Parada to replace Langley himself as principal helmsman. Winning the Rolex TP52 World Championship was a just and popular reward for Langley, who then promptly flew home to win Cowes Week on another member of the Gladiator stable.

Gladiator trimmer Simon Fry highlights a few of the more recent changes, not least a change of boat this season to the previous Alegre, purchased and refitted over last winter.

‘Guille driving makes a difference,’ says Fry. ‘We usually start well and have often been consistently fast, but now the change of boat turns out to be the final piece of the jigsaw. This new boat does feel more versatile, one reason we could step in and have such a good first regatta in Newport… We came in with a hiss and a roar at the end and finished as runners-up.’

He continues, ‘We are quite radical with our rig in the light. But beyond that it is just that tired cliché: “incremental gains”. We quote it in every sport, you are just trying to make those little gains here and there.

‘For example, Tony is very big on hydration. He is adamant that still too many people are under-hydrated out on the racecourse. We are definitely not among those – as you will see before every race start, when it amuses me how there are typically four or five Gladiators hanging off the back taking a leak.

Above: that puppy ain’t going very far offshore, bubb. But the deck layout on Ergin Imre’s new Provezza 11 is an exquisite example of carefully modelled and well thought through ergonomics, based upon hundreds if not thousands of hours of windward-leeward racing on the Turkish team’s relatively similar predecessor design. You can never have enough Rolexes; like TP52 fleet favourite Ergin Imre coming within a tie-break of last year’s Super Series title, so another longtime underdog is now well and truly in the box seats as Tony Langley’s (below) Gladiator become TP52 World Champions. Barely a week later they were Cowes Week winners too

‘As a team we remain very process driven. Tony is a very analytical person. On arriving in Newport he looked around and said to us, “This is a place where you have to win a side and if you win your side you will be fourth or better.” Exactly how it played out.’

Fry has been with the TP52s since the beginning of time. His views on new boats are often insightful. ‘The new boats will get there, they always do. The key for me is that whenever there has been a new iteration in the past, if we look at 2011, ’15, ’18, there were four, five, six, seven, eight boats all working up together. This time you have two new boats, fundamentally different teams, and they are coming in against boats that are bang on the pace.

‘I think both boats will get there, both boats have flashes of speed. But Platoon hitting something early on was not good, damaging both appendages. They did use it as a prompt to change a fin that they were uncertain about. I believe they have increased area and gone more “grippy”.

‘Platoon changed their fin but it has still been hard for them sailing the last regattas using our spare rudder, which they have on loan. Come Portals they will be on the pace.’

And looking to the success of Vayu and to Shawn and Tina Kang’s Alpha Plus, which finished fourth at the TP52 World Championship, Fry contends, ‘Vayu is an older boat which is very slippery downwind and they kept a little under the radar for the first four or five races; then suddenly they were 10 points ahead!

‘I think Alpha Plus are also on the up albeit from a somewhat lower base. They are a younger team, learning to sail a TP52. I think they will get better and better and they have a very good boat in their 2018 Botín design. It was always a good light-weather boat especially sub-9kt. I think their young Kiwi/Japanese helm Leo Takahashi is doing a good job and they are starting to command their own space on the startline… they are coming on fast.’

There is no doubt that the second half of the 2024 season is going to be fascinating. It would not be a surprise to see either Platoon or Alegre win in Portals or Valencia. Platoon finished third at the TP52 Worlds using their borrowed rudder and after too many red flags. Now they are hungry and on a mission.

So too Alegre, who could not quite close out the title at Palmavela but now just need everything to line up for once. Sled, too, were in the box seats in Newport into the last day of the world champion - ship. While Quantum just need to lose their last day voodoo!!!
Andi Robertson

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