Paul Cayar
Rob Weiland
Since the first Super Series in 2012 only one team other than Quantum Racing and Azzurra has won the title – the exception being Takashi Okura’s Sled who pulled off a hugely popular victory in 2021. Since Azzurra moved on it was reasonable to expect Doug DeVos’s Quantum to have it easier, but the quality runs deep in this fleet and even for DeVos, Terry Hutchinson and friends every day brings a reset. That said, Quantum Racing won four of this year’s five rounds… The enjoyment runs deep too (right) as a boisterous Tony Langley and his aft grinder and friend since school days Geoff Povey were invited onto the 52 Super Series 10th anniversary party stage, to receive a special award in appreciation of Gladiator’s support of the 52 Super Series from its earliest days. As for that depth of quality in the TP52 fleet… Gladiator heads out each day with as many Olympic gold medals as anyone, with Xabí Fernandez and Paul Goodison in the back and up forwards a plethora of other Volvo and America’s Cup veterans like Ian Moore and Joey Newton
The next decade…
In the end Quantum Racing won their fifth 52 Super Series title in the series’ 10th anniversary year, taking into account that due to Covid the 2020 series never got further than one event. Doug DeVos, the team’s owner-driver, this year helmed four of the five events including the final event in Barcelona, where he hopes to become
a larger part of yachting history just two years from now when competing for the America’s Cup with American Magic. But whoever decided that AC37 will be sailed in October must
know things that I have no access to… even the TP52s were struggling to get five of the 10 scheduled races in over five days of racing due to the not uncommon extremely light October condi- tions. TP52s are going fine in 6 or 7kt of steady breeze, no worries about falling off foils, but bar one day when we squeezed in three races we rarely saw that much breeze… It was a battle for DeVos and crew till the very end as the Plattner
family’s Phoenix got within 3pt for the overall lead on day 2 with some inspired tactics by Tom Slingsby and solid work by the rest of the team – of which Tina Plattner did a sterling job on the helm having hardly been out on a boat for nearly two years due to back issues. Of course we did not know then that the next three days would
produce just one more race, one that saw Phoenix over the line at the start. To come back from an OCS in a slowly deteriorating 6kt breeze proved too much for the close-knit South African flagged team, to leave them as 2022 series runner-up. The overall podium was completed by the ever solid Harm Müller Spreer and his multi- national German flagged team Platoon – Harm’s team has been on every 52 Super Series podium since 2017.
34 SEAHORSE At Barcelona 10 TP52 class members sat down to discuss the
event rules for next year’s racing as well as the future of the TP52 class rule over a much longer period. It was decided at the outset to freeze the class rule for at least three more years to create stability for current members as well as for possible new members. It was also decided that boats may be changed and entered for the 52 Super Series at any time, so also midway through a 52 Super Series season and not just before the start of a new series as has been the situation up till now. With a shortage of construction materials and long lead times
for almost anything required to build and fit out a TP52 this enables an owner to build, launch and get a new TP52 race ready without time pressure to launch before the series starts. Also, if the new boat is replacing an existing boat, the current
boat can remain the trial horse for the new one for a while, where previously one would be happy just to have launched in time for the first event of the year! Looking longer term, like five years from now, might the members
feel the need for some rule development again? I assume that by then we will not have all the same members
as we have today, boats will have changed hands, new owners and new boats will have joined, sons or daughters might have taken over the tiller from their father. Perhaps the time could then be ripe to move from development to one-design, or have both, a one-off hull in a mix with obligatory use of one-design components – as in the Imoca 60 class and the AC50 foiling America’s Cup cats in Bermuda in 2017. A move to one-design (components) will have its charm and fans. Surely it will reduce initial costs but as running costs remain the
NICO MARTINEZ
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