Another cracking TP52 Super Series and, honestly, where better to hold the end of term party than Yacht Club Costa Smeralda. Even with six or so months still to go plenty of sailors around the globe are already looking forward to their turn come Sardinia Cup 2026
the perfect first boat for us. A good choice. However, before long we started to look at a bigger boat and the TP52 was one option we considered. As well as the TP52 being a great boat, I was drawn to this circuit because it is well-organised, races in attractive locations and with a great fleet of sailors and owners who are fiercely committed to doing well. This made us feel this is our best next step.’ His sailing background has been mainly family cruising: ‘I have
minimal racing history. I have only been doing this for a few years, starting on a VX One Design which was super fun, very fast, and it was big enough for me and my kids to start in together. I will keep racing with them. But I feel like now is the time for me to step up and so on to something new.’ Sundberg’s new TP52 is currently in build in Valencia. ‘We looked
around at different options to buy a used boat but the market is tiny, too many people looking and too few boats. So we made the decision in May to build new for 2026. What we are building has been tailored for our team, based on the years of experience of the designers, builder and other sailors. I think we will get a boat that will fit our crew. It will obviously take time to optimise it for what we want, but building a new boat was the right thing to do.’ Sundberg is building at King Marine to a Botín design close to
the Alegre/Platoon Aviation design. It is being project-managed by Micky Costa and most likely they will run with North Sails. Sundberg wants a team that is as Swedish as possible. ‘We reckon that in the beginning we need experience from good
sailors who are already racing in this fleet. But the longterm ambition is to build a wider Swedish platform to give young Swedes from big clubs like the KSS and GSS enough knowledge and experience to eventually get onto this circuit. We aim to take on kids of around 16-17 years old and provide a platform on which they will train inshore and offshore with the top step being the 52 Super Series.’ Marcus Hoglander has raced previous Swedish TP52 campaigns
with Niklas Zennström and then Filip Engelbert and is a well-known face on the circuit. Lewander – now with North Sails Sweden – skip- pered Ericsson 3 on the 2008-2009 Volvo Ocean Race; he says that around two-thirds of their new TP52 team is already recruited. A second Brazilian team is also joining the circuit. Mauro Dottori
and Fabio Cotrim will campaign Phoenix with an experienced group, good friends and counterparts of the successful Crioula Team which has been their inspiration. The Caballo Loco Sailing Team has Finn and Star ace Jorge Zarif as tactician with Andre Mirsky as strategist. They will also have several non-pro sailors onboard, including navigator Luciano Secchin who on his ‘days off’ works as a ship pilot on the Amazon… Most of this team are from São Paolo. They are stepping up from their previous ‘mini’ Phoenix Botín
44 SEAHORSE
44-footer, so were very chuffed to be able to buy the ‘real’ Phoenix TP52! Since 2023 they have chartered other TP52s to race in the Med, principally at Copa del Rey.
Winning notes Taking four programmes under his wing in 2025, American Magic, Gladiator, Vayu and Alpha+, longtime Quantum coach James Lyne was constantly running data day in day out throughout the season. And as usual there were some interesting conclusions. He notes, ‘2025 was always going to be a fun season, plenty of boats changed foil/bulb packages, plus the three new boats from 2024 were going to become more refined and start going faster. ‘Meanwhile, all the major sailmakers in the class had been
beavering away making refinements on the aero side. Season opener St Tropez was a little too light to draw conclusions, but Baiona had a great range of conditions that began to show us how the tea leaves were going to spread out for the year. ‘Quantum Racing were on our 2024 platform configuration so
we already had a great year of solid data vs the fleet to know what our strengths and weaknesses were going to be with that set-up. Our gains were going to be evolutions in rig set-up, plus design and structure of some of the key sails for the season. We had a big focus on the 6-12kt wind range, so it was good to see a small edge develop upwind in that band. ‘Over the winter many of the boats had also changed to big fat chord
keels –which delivered some consistent benefits upwind and holding a lane. But there is still no such thing as a free lunch and, sure enough, the price for those gains was some downwind deficit for the boats that moved that way. Cascais this year was as breezy and wavy as ever and the top two boats there were the two that can run the highest forestay loads in the fleet. A little correlation to the causation!!! ‘Across the fleet we had a group of all-round boats – Quantum
Racing, Sled, Paprec, Gladiator, Alpha+, Vayu and Alkedo – that did especially well in the 6-14kt TWS range upwind. Then the new boats – Alegre, Platoon and at times Provezza – which were very fast in flat water and gusty up-range offshore conditions where they could sail fast numbers to the next shift. The flatter sea state was also better for these flatter hulls, with less rocker than predecessor designs. ‘And then of course Sled once again found an extra gear upwind
in Porto Cervo, in 16kt+ of windspeed, with her raked rig and structured-luff flat camber, draft forward mainsail with its straight exits. Something for everyone to look at for next year. ‘Now it’s back down the boat speed mine for the winter… so
I’m looking forward to seeing what people come up with for 2026.’ Andi Robertson
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