With 13 boats racing the heat is on in Puerto Portals 52 Super Series Sailing Week

by 52 Super Series 28 Aug 05:25 NZST 28 August - 1 September 2024

Puerto Portals 52 Super Series Sailing Week © Nico Martinez

While two different teams - Hasso and Tina Plattner's Phoenix and Andy Soriano's Alegre - won the two short official practice races raced today ahead of Puerto Portals 52 SUPER SERIES starts on the Bay of Palma Wednesday, these one lap heats also served as the last chance for the two new teams, the French Teasing Machine and Brasil's Crioula Team to find their marks before they step into the white heat of battle tomorrow.

And it was also the last chance for Ergin Imre's Provezza crew to practice with their brand new boat, the eleventh of that name that the popular Turkish owner has campaigned.

It was also a chance for all the afterguards from the 13 TP52s from nine nations to get to grips with what are expected to be quite light to moderate wind conditions expected over the first few days of this event which is the penultimate of the season. But most of all it was a last chance to get dialled in to the bigger fleet size with the addition of two new teams.

Two more boats = double trouble....

With a first and second today Phoenix showed they might be rekindling the form which saw them win the last regatta of last season here in Puerrto Portals, the venue where they scored their first regatta victory as a team here in July 2022.

Cameron Dunn, the Kiwi strategist who was on board both times, said today, "It is going to be so tough to win here. It is amazing how different it feels with a couple more boats. It feels like. wow!, the fleet is double the size. Getting caught up in the middle of the fleet in bad air is very expensive, you get punished. Today was a typical light Palma sea breeze and it was not one sided at all. We made a nice gain on the right in the first race and on the second it was phasing back and forth and it depended how you set up."

Dunn added, "You have to stay out of the congestion. We feel alright in terms of speed. We have Tony Norris steering the boat this week. We have had success here and so it feels like our basic strategies and what we are looking for has worked. And so if it has worked before why would it not work again?"

New boat.... feels good

The new Provezza XI has very much been in the mix today and yesterday. Skipper helm John Cutler said "We are learning a lot of things every time we go out, learning what strings to pull and when. But the boat seems good, we look forwards to going racing. We are trying to make the boat reliable and learn the depth we need in the sails and balance and the rudder all these things. I would love to see all conditions from six to 26 knots and big waves, for us is would be great to have a range of conditions to try the new boat out."

Puerto Portals 52 Super Series Sailing Week - photo © Nico Martinez

Happy anticipation among the new teams

The two new teams are settling in well and both were in contention in both races. Laurent Pages (FRA) tactician from Teasing Machine said, "These were great moments to finally line up with other boats as we only had four days sailing so far on the boat. We had so much to do checking sails and learning how to do the manoeuvres in these past days and so we are pretty happy with the first day. We had some good starts and tested to see how it is for us in really tight lanes upwind on the first beats. So we learned, we need space to start with. But we were in the match which was a nice surprise."

And from Team Crioula tactician Sam Albrecht (BRA) enthused, "Today we did some good races in the pack and were happy with that. We are very much here to learn. We are good group of friends, a mix of amateurs and professionals. The fleet is so tight and we need to keep improving every day."

The French Paprec team of Jean Luc Petithuguenin laid a floral tribute on the waters in memory of their spinnaker trimmer Olivier Camebourg who passed away recently.

The races of the Puerto Portals 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week will be broadcast live on the 52 SUPER SERIES digital channels every day. Racing is scheduled at 1300hrs each day with the stream starting at 15 minutes before the first start of the day.