Paul Cayar
Rob Weiland
A little stress helps
But too much stress can make it hard to perform. And worse, take the fun away from competing. The recent Rolex TP52 World Championship,
sailed from Marina Puerto Portals in Mallorca, was in every aspect one of the better TP52 Worlds of the past 10 years. The four days that we raced the weather provided the 11 teams with a good
mix of conditions, day 4 especially with a brisk offshore northwesterly wind providing spectacular racing for all three races completed. King of the day was undoubtedly Harm Müller-Spreer with his super-
solid Platoon team of battle-hardened warriors like John Kostecki (tactics), Jordi Calafat (strategist), Jules Salter (navigator), Dirk de Ridder (main) and trimmers like Javi Plaza and Ross Halcrow, scoring 1,1,5. Hot on their stern Azzurra with 2,4,2 and Bronenosec with 6,3,1, and the other two boats in contention for the final podium, Alegre and Sled, both dropping the ball a bit following very strong performances on the first two days. And everything caught on camera and presented live on the day
– and the footage lives on at
52superseries.com. If you can find the time to watch it you will see what can be achieved nowadays by professionals with modern camera and communication equipment… for substantially less money than we needed to bring you the MedCup 10 years ago (also to witness the level of crewing achieved by some of today’s best professional sailors). That day also resulted in, for 52 Super Series, quite a large overall
margin of 7pt to Azzurrain second (28), with 4pt more to Bronenosec (32), another 4pt to Alegre (36) and another 4pt to Sled (40). Done and dusted you would and we all did think, but the final day
proved once more it ain’t over till the fat lady sings. Somehowtension got to both Azzurra as well as Platoon resulting in Platoon adding two penalty points to their score for contact, one contact with Azzurra in the prestart of race 8 and one with Quantumat the start of race 9. Penalties that from my shoreside bench were very much self-inflicted;
36 SEAHORSE
and so we saw a very relieved Harm Müller-Spreer coming back to shore with a poor score of 8,9… because Azzurra had let him off the hook with her 6,8. But it was tight, as at times during the final race Bronenosecwas in world champion position too, with Alegre or Sled also on stage. Over the final five races Provezza scored the best results racing
with their barely tuned spare rig after dismasting in race 1 in 10kt of breeze following a yet to be confirmed gear failure. Pride and frus- tration in a much too close embrace for her owner’s liking, for sure. The 11 teams gave all they had – three days in and five teams
had a real chance of being on stage. Of those five probably only Bronenosec was straightaway really happy with their bronze. Azzurra, Alegre and Sled all felt disappointed, certainly as a first reaction. Platoon seemed slightly embarrassed to lose control by this much
at the end. In the penultimate race Azzurra clearly intended to put pressure on Platoon and they succeeded, only to then fail to cash in. Frustrating for that one race but to then copy-and-paste this more or less to the final race reflects the pressure they put themselves under. Two dogs fighting for a bone with three eager dogs ready to take
advantage of course makes the ideal script for an entertaining show, certainly if the viewer can see the overall result as well as the race result vary with each position change while watching the boats racing on his screen. Fleet-racing boats identical in performance is and always will be a very testing discipline. With the adrenaline flowing and joy and frustration clearly visible,
albeit in very different ways between the individual players, I some- times feel almost as a parent watching their kids and cannot escape the intensity of the game myself, even when just watching the racing on a screen ashore. I certainly am the kind of parent who urges to relax, claiming that
‘winning is not everything…’ But as soon as the main focus is on winning, and stress visibly takes over from joy without adequate
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