52 Super Series: Keeping the pressure on Gladiator win

Tony Langley’s Gladiator team won the one and only race to be sailed at the Puerto Portals 52 Super Series Sailing Week to keep the pressure on the event leaders Harm Müller-Spreer’s Platoon Aviation who maintained their high level of consistency with a third to remain nine points clear as the regatta passed its midpoint today. Doug DeVos’s Quantum Racing powered by American Magic took third.

It was another pin end start masterclass from helm Guille Parada, Langley and the world championship winning afterguard, their opening gambit on their chosen, favoured left side of the course allowed them to cross the fleet just over half way up the first beat. From there the British team were very much in control of Race 5 and able to build a comfortable cushion ahead of the US boat. Platoon Aviation maybe lost ground on the second circuit but remain on course to win their first regatta since taking the 2023 Rolex TP52 World Championship title in Barcelona last year.

The left is best because

Bruno Zirilli, navigator on the Gladiator explained“The gradient wind was coming much more left and wrapping round the cape and meeting the southerly breeze giving a 160 degrees, the typical Xaloc breeze as it is known here. Some guys tried the right as it is often good early in the afternoon. Today the left was strong from the beginning, Guille is very good at executing.” 

Quantum Racing powered by American Magic’s second was well earned, starting well and managing their positioning in the 13 boat fleet well. They lie third overall and are still chasing a regatta win this season,

Nevin Snow, the Quantum strategist recalled, “It was mostly about working to the left side of the course as that side was dominant all day. It was relatively simple.”

“We do wish this season was going a little better for us. We are trying to get the wheels back on the car a bit now and do more of what we were doing at the start of the season, which is consistency and let the other boats around us make mistakes. In Newport we made a lot of basic mistakes, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to turn sixths into seconds when all we needed to do was turn a sixth into a fifth for example. We were making a mistake and then making a second mistake which we needed to avoid. We fought hard in Newport and the first regatta was good until the last day but we are happy to be here in Europe and happy to be just moving forwards.”

Vasco Vascotto, tactician on the regatta leaders Platoon Aviation is happy, “So far we are doing well. It's very difficult: in a fleet with 13 boats it's very easy to get it wrong, but for now everything is working, the team is doing a very good job, Harm is getting to know the boat and so we are being more consistent. But this is a long regatta it's only over on the last day. In the downwind leg with Gladiator we were conservative and in the end we lost a boat, and that's a point that personally annoys me a lot. Since PalmaVela we have changed the keel profile a bit, we know the boat a bit better, but we are still far from knowing it a hundred per cent, but we are starting to understand what we can and can't do. I love competing in a fleet of 13 boats; as a tactician, it's another challenge, and I like it.”

PUERTO PORTALS 52 SUPER SERIES SAILING WEEK STANDINGS

1. PLATOON AVIATION (GER), Harm Müller-Spreer, 1+2+4+1+3 = 11   

2. GLADIATOR (GBR), Tony Langley, 3+1+10+5+1 = 20

3. QUANTUM RACING POWERED BY AMERICAN MAGIC (USA), Doug DeVos, 4+6+3+12+2 = 27  

4. INTERLODGE (USA), Austin & Gwen Fragomen, 8+3+9+3+4 = 27    

5. PAPREC (FRA), Jean-Luc Pethuguenin, 6+8+2+4+8 = 28

6. PHOENIX (RSA), Hasso & Tina Plattner, 11+7+1+6+9 = 34

7. VAYU (THA), Whitcraft Family, 9+5+11+9+5 = 39 

8. PROVEZZA (TUR), Ergin Imre, 7+13+12+2+6 = 40

9. ALPHA+ (HKG), Shawn & Tina Kang, 12+4+7+13+7 = 43

10. SLED (USA), Takashi Okura, 5+9+8+11+10 = 43   

11. ALEGRE (GBR), Andy Soriano, 10+10+5+8+12 = 45   

12. CRIOULA (BRA), Eduardo & Renato Plass, 2+12+13+7+13 = 45

13. TEASING MACHINE (FRA), Eric De Turckheim, 13+11+6+10+11 = 51