With no score outside of the top five so far, after four races Ergin Imre’s Turkish flagged Provezza leads Puerto Portals 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week. The team which won their first regatta together on these Bay of Palma waters out of Puerto Portals in July 2017 has returned a seven points aggregate on both days. Led by Argentinian ‘dream pairing’ Cole Parada and Santi Lange they are six points clear of Andrea Lacorte’s Italian Alkedo which rose to second on the strength of two well earned first places today.

After an opening day Tuesday with light, fickle winds and cloud cover, today saw a welcome return of sunshine and with it the Palma sea breeze conditions. Winds peaked at 16 knots during a glorious first race but a ceiling of high cloud, then thunder clouds sucked the life out of the thermal breeze and the second race was shortened at the second windward mark.

It was a solid day’s work from the Provezza team, their boat showing no lack of speed and the afterguard sailing measured strategies, not pushing too hard to the flanks whilst making good use of the wind bends and shifts and starting well.

Cole Parada, tactician on Provezza enthused, “We’re very happy at the moment; it’s as if everything is falling into place at just the right time. Santi (Lange, strategist) and our navigator Nacho Postigo are making some spot-on calls, and both the boat and the crew are performing very well. Consistency is always the most important thing in the 52 SUPER SERIES, and that’s never going to change. Before, a fifth place was a ‘keeper’; now with 14 boats racing even a seventh or eighth is a good result.”

After two ninth places on Tuesday, Alkedo’s Cameron Appleton was delighted with their double bullet day, “Sometimes you have to remember that what you are doing is quite good,  I think we did a lot of things really well yesterday and did not get a good day out of it. Today we kept prioritising the starts and making sure we were really organised in both starts. Both times we got off the pin end well and were able to be the last man in to the left. And that was kind of the key. The team did a fantastic job getting the boat locked in on the beats and really going, and solidifying our position at the top marks and then we were able to stretch. The boat did the work thereafter and it is nice to come ashore after a day like that. It does not happen very often in this fleet. We put a new keel on in the winter and that gives us more weight in the bulb, we have a heavier crew, new headstay, great crew so everything is now us up to us to sail it well.”

After a dream opening day which saw them win Race 2 of the regatta to hold third overall after Day 1, it was back to earth with a bump for the new Swedish team on Trinity. They suffered a main halyard problem before the first race of the day which they could not fix, meaning they had to miss the race. Joakim Sundburg’s crew lie ninth.

Ed Baird, tactician on Trinity, reported, “We had a couple of self-inflicted issues today. We made a mistake with out main halyard at the beginning of the day and we had to get it re-done to fix it and so did not make the first race. And the second race we were going round the course in pretty good shape but we also had a little problem and had to do a manual drop at the bottom that put us on the less favoured side of the gat and then there was a big shift up the second beat and that was the end of our strong result but it was still acceptable. “

Tak Okura’s Sled were pushed back to ninth when Paprec closed the door on them at the top of the second beat on the first race which cost them a possible top 3 or 4 but the 2021 champions are third holding the same 20pts points aggregate as Alkedo.

With thunderstorms and rain expected Thursday racing is scheduled to start at midday Thursday.

Puerto Portals 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week Provisional Leaderboard after four races
1. Provezza (TUR), Ergin Imre, 5+2+3+4 = 14
2. Alkedo Vitamina (ITA), Andrea Lacorte, 9+9+1+1 = 20
3. Sled, Takashi Okura, 2+7+9+2 = 20
4. Gladiator (GBR), Tony Langley, 6+3+8+5 = 22
5. Crioula (BRA), Eduardo & Renato Plass, 10+5+4+6 = 25 
6. Platoon Aviation (GER), Harm Müller-Spreer, 7+11+5+3 = 26 
7. No Way Back (NED), Pieter Heerema, 3+8+6+10 = 27
8. Vayu (THA), Whitcraft Family, 1+4+12+14 = 31
9. Trinity Racing (SWE), Joakim Sundberg, 8+1+15(DNS)+8 = 32 
10. Alpha + (HKG), Shawn & Tina Kang, 4+10+10+9 = 33
11. Paprec (FRA), Jean-Luc Petithuguenin, 14+6+2+13 = 35
12. Alegre (GBR), Andy Soriano, 11+12+7+11 = 41 
13. Caballo Loco (BRA), Mauro Dottori & Fabio Cotrim, 13+13+13+7 = 46 
14. Teasing Machine (FRA), Eric de Turckheim, 12+15(DNF)+1(PEN)+11+12 = 51