Update
A very happy boy though understandably looking a bit damp and miserable. In 2017 Swiss skipper Alan Roura became the youngest ever finisher of the Vendée Globe, aged 23. Now he has his new boat sailing, Armel Le Cléacʼhʼs original Finot design on which he finished runner-up in the 2008 race. Working with Finot and foil expert Michel Kermarec Roura has dramatically upgraded his 12 year old design including installing this aggressive set of foils. He also added a big coachroof extension to avoid getting wet… ʻI hate itʼ
docket. In both programmes there is a lot of catching-up to do. No rest, which is just the way we like it. Standing by on Amtrak!
MAN ON THE STICK – Guillermo Parada
The Argentinean skipper is one of the great protagonists of the TP52 fleet and a serious candidate for victories. He started sailing in this class as tactician on Patches with skipper Ian Walker in 2006, and the following season began his long career with the Roemmers family with the mythical Matador, later renamed Azzurra. In addition to his role as a sailor, Parada is very involved in the circuit itself as he is the trusted representative of the Roemmers family, one of the owners of the 52 Super Series. A postponement ashore allowed us to talk quietly together in Valencia hidden away in one of the Azzurra containers. Seahorse: What is your best memory of all these years? Guillermo Parada: I have many. Coming from Argentina, I always try to keep my feet on the ground. I think we are privileged because we are sailing at a high level supported by a fantastic owner. The best memory? The 12 years of the TP52 circuit… sometimes I wonder how my life would be without this series, it is such a big part of my life.
But to answer you, I choose the 2007 Copa del Rey that we won. It was a surprise because it was our first year as a team, with a very large fleet. Another was to win the 2012 series here in Valencia with an epic final against Quantum. And of course since that big fight in 2012 we have always been fighting for victory. As team manager I am also especially proud of our group; in bad times no one tries to hide or excuse himself or herself from the situation. It’s nice to be able to always look each other in the eye. SH: You have sailed many seasons with Vasco Vascotto doing tactics and this year Santi Lange arrived – has it been a difficult change? GP: We knew it was going to be difficult as Vasco is a very good tactician, but he also has a very particular style. We knew that whoever was the substitute was going to find it difficult to fit in, that we would need time to integrate. We chose Santi for his talent and because he is someone we all know well. Despite starting the
12 SEAHORSE
season winning PalmaVela, at the beginning of the Super Series we slipped back. But we knew it would be like that, that we would need a running-in period. In Cascais things had begun to change. With the strong conditions, our speed, boathandling and man - oeuvres kept us in the front group, and that allowed us to improve communication and gain confidence. From there we improved a lot and in Portals we were fighting for victories again. SH: What changes would you highlight over the years? GP: How to prepare for each season. Now the teams are bigger, with much larger structures. Technically the leading teams are much more organised in how they go about developing the boats, espe- cially the rigs which is what we work on the most. Plus the electronics allow us to be much more precise with the data now. But the beautiful thing is that despite all this technology it still comes down to how well or badly you perform on the water. SH: How does the Azzurra rig programme work? GP: We are clients of North Sails and at the end of the year they do a big debrief where the designers all bring their ideas and make the latest designs available to the other teams. This puts us in a good place to prepare the sails for the following season. After so many years we have an excellent database of our own and three years ago we began to develop our own technology to analyse sail shape. We currently have three cameras on the boat that take pictures automatically, to study shapes and trim. The photos are integrated into the data on conditions, set-up and performance of the boat at the moment of each photo. Each day afloat we collect 1,000 photos that go into our database, and that gives us a good starting point to develop new sails, and also to assess possible changes a manufacturer may offer us in terms of new materials or sail structure. Our sail designer Juan Garay leads this analysis with the team’s coach Marco Capitani, while our navigator Bruno Zirilli puts together all of the data. SH: Let’s talk about the circuit and the transformation from there being many sponsored professional teams to the boats now all being owned privately again… GP: The original MedCup had owners of the circuit with a commercial priority and their ideas had to convince sponsors to support the teams. Now the circuit is owned by three TP52 owners and the
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CHRISTOPHE BRESCHI/FABRIQUE
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