NICO MARTINEZ
Super Series
(Focused) passion
Just as sailors who collect bikes legitimately claim each has a purpose and a use, so Gladiator owner Tony Langley has gathered his mini fleet of three TP52s, each for specific requirements. The ebullient, passionate British owner may increasingly enjoy the variety of domestic corrected-time racing at home on the Solent and forays to the USA and the Caribbean to race, but the 52 Super Series is his pinnacle challenge. Langley and his Gladiator team are one of the five crews who
raced at the first ever 52 Super Series regatta, Barcelona’s Conde de Godo Trophy, in May 2012. And though his recent schedule has meant missing a couple of Super Series events to race at the New York Yacht Club his pursuit of perfection remains undimmed. ‘Of course I am competitive. In everything,’ Langley grins mischie-
vously. ‘But if you go into the 52 Super Series and are super com- petitive and mustwin then forget it, because it is probably not going to happen. If you measure competitiveness by the need to win and the need to have shiny things at the end of the week, then no. ‘I just love the pursuit of perfection that you have to have to even
have a reasonable finish in this series – everything has to be going well. And there are so many elements to getting a team firing on all 12 cylinders, and everything else being right as well.’ Being an engineer, and a rather successful one… in common
with other Super Series owners, Langley is further enthused by the elements of design freedom and the need to make smart technical and personnel choices that are inherent in the TP52 and the 52 Super Series. The skipper of Gladiator is very much a hands-on owner-driver! ‘Tom Wilson takes care of the nuts and bolts of it. He reports
to me in just the same way as one of our MDs would in one of our businesses. I have an active involvement in as much as I always know what is happening and I am actively involved with Tom in the management of it. I am certainly not doing his job for him, but I do selectively drill down into the detail.’
38 SEAHORSE All three of his TP52s get regular use. Originally he bought the
Matadorwhich came with a bunch of old sails and became Weapon of Choice. The Gladiator name appeared when Langley bought the world championship-winning 2009 Artemis programme which is now the so-called C-boat that is on IRC duty in the Solent. The next 2015 new-build Gladiator has gone to the Caribbean
and was supposed to compete this year in Antigua. Finally for the 52 Super Series Langley now races the Botin design Gladiatorwhich was bought as the freshly built but never campaigned Interlodge. She is now waiting ashore in Puerto Portals with the rest of the 52 Super Series fleet. ‘I love the TP52 because it is a super high-performance boat that
remains relatively, and I emphasise relatively, forgiving. It is a 12-man boat which I like – in terms of teamwork this is the ideal size if you are chasing perfection around tight courses. And I love the speed and handling. It is superb, the balance and performance of the boat are just wonderful.’ In the period 2016-19 Langley has been doing 60-70 days’ sailing
a year, which he says is ‘enough’. ‘It is a lot. I have a day job and to be honest I would not like to be doing more. There is a limit to how much you can do even with the three-boat programme.’ Lately he has used the B-boat in the USA and Caribbean and,
like some other owners on the circuit, is a fan of the idea of opening a 52 Super Series season with two Caribbean regattas. Likewise in recent years he has come to enjoy racing out of Newport RI and reflects how cool it would be to have a TP52 regatta or two there. ‘It would be great, but equally you have to understand that it is
June before Newport is really good and so you cannot ship the boats back in time for a summer season in the Med – that is a big commitment.’ He adds, ‘I always liked opening the season in Key West and it is such a shame to see it gone. Miami, as a standalone event, was also great.’ But the mix, he says, remains very important to him. ‘The B-boat
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