IMAGES NICO MARTINEZ
Super Series
An astonishing display of consistent performance over 18 years in the toughest of classes. Skipper Doug DeVos (front right) should be beaming as Quantum Racing lift the Super Series Trophy for the seventh time. Almost all those victories were achieved with Terry Hutchinson there as tactician, with guest appearances from Ado Stead and others when DeVos’s main man was otherwise engaged
A very good run
Emotions ran high when American Magic Quantum Racing docked back at the Yacht Club Costa Smeralda having just won the 2025 52 Super Series title. After 18 years of competing, first in the Med Cup and then starting as a co-founder of the 52 Super Series, the final event of the season was also the final event for the DeVos family’s Quantum team. Quantum have consistently set the perfor- mance standard for the circuit – and, whether winning the season or not, they have been a big driver for the level getting higher every year. Doug DeVos was fundamental to the founding of the circuit and has been a cornerstone to its continued success. DeVos is keen now to spend more time at home with his family,
not least to spend time with his grandchildren, encouraging and supporting them in their own sporting endeavours. Although he will not be racing on the 52 Super Series in the near future, he remains the circuit’s majority shareholder and has pledged his ongoing support and active participation in the management of its future. As he enthused, ‘Every time one door closes another one opens.
We have to attract people to our sport, we have to find new and better ways to tell our story. This circuit really helps develop the sport. The Super Series is such a great platform and we have to keep dreaming, keep working, how do we make it better? We have to find new and better ways to tell our story and to engage more people and keep the sport of sailing expanding further.’ Their record is unmatched. 2025 is their seventh 52 Super Series
season title and in Cascais they won the TP52 World Championship for the eighth time. Since the circuit was launched in 2012 they have won the titles in 2013, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2022, 2024 and 2025. They were also world champions in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2022, 2025. Quantum also won the TP52 Royal Cup in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2022, 2025. Since the start of the 52 Super Series circuit they notched up
28 event wins and finished on the podium 52 times. They are the only team to have competed at all 66 regattas sailed so far. In 2025 they won seven races from 40 starts – the joint highest number with Platoon Aviation – and won six races in 2024 from 41 starts. Thanks are due to so many team members but perhaps most
of all to their indefatigable team manager Ed Reynolds, the ‘adult supervision’ as he disarmingly describes himself. But he has been the oil that has kept the machine rolling along so smoothly. Of course the whole team will be missed, but they leave at the
top of their game with the 52 Super Series in excellent health. Nego- tiations are at an advanced stage for an experienced, committed owner to buy their continually optimised Botín boat and programme; if that comes to the expected conclusion then many of the current Quantum team are likely to continue in their roles. In Porto Cervo it was also a fond farewell – for the moment – to
Hasso and Tina Plattner’s Phoenix team which has been campaign- ing for eight years. Tina is successfully pursuing her equestrian goals and Hasso – co-founder of software giant SAP – is becoming less keen on travelling as much as he did. Of her legendary father Tina said at the end-of-season bash, ‘his only regret is that we did not start on the 52 Super Series sooner than we did’. For all that, the expectation is to have an average of 13 boats
on the startline next year and as many as 15 at the season’s finale in Valencia. Plus there are several keen prospective new owners in the wings looking for good, competitive boats.
Young blood In Porto Cervo, learning first-hand what it is really all about, was new young Swedish owner Joakim Sundberg along with Marcus Hoglander and Anders Lewander – two key members of his Trinity Racing Team. Sundberg is another successful tech businessman who has worked all his life in cyber security as co-founder of the Swedish company Baffin Bay Networks – itself recently acquired by Mastercard. Now Sundberg is turning some of that competitive focus towards the water, committing his next five years to getting as high up the Super Series fleet as possible. Sundberg is something of a newcomer to sailing but he is impassioned and determined and he is going in with his eyes fully open. Last year his nascent team bought a Melges IC37 to help find
their feet. Sundberg explains, ‘After sailing on the IC37 a little and feeling the power and loving the layout of the boat, it was definitely
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