Preparation and fine tuning at an all-time high as the 52 Super Series 2025 season beckons
by 52 Super Series 18 Apr 15:14 BST
52 Super Series © 52 Super Series
With the start of the 2025 52 SUPER SERIES season looming large on the horizon, less than two weeks before the first start guns of the 52 SUPER SERIES Saint Tropez Sailing Week, more than half of the race fleet have just completed a pre-season training week as teams look to reach a level of preparation never seen before in the fleet.
Of course crews are all too conscious that the last seasons have been decided by one single point here and there. And so being in the best position to start Day 1, Race 1 strongly most importantly not giving away points easily - has been top of their agendas.
Many teams have made alternations and updates to their boats and have new crew joining up and so a spell of intense tuning and training was hugely beneficial.
A total of eight teams profited from a good range of wind conditions in Valencia, Spain based out of the Victory Challenge and King Marine facilities to whom the teams and the circuit extend their grateful thanks. After initial tuning and speed testing between boats and groups of boats, three days of informal races were run by 52 SUPER SERIES Race Officer Maria Torrijo diring which the Vakaros start line monitoring system was trialled.
The 52 SUPER SERIES champions American Magic Quantum Racing. who welcome back Terry Hutchinson as tactician this season, sailed out of Palma, Mallorca over a similar time period.
Newcomers profit: "One of the best structured and beneficial weeks for a long time..."
It was an especially important work up period for the Italian flagged newcomers to the circuit, Andrea Lacorte's Alkedo powered by Vitamina, the former Interlodge. Their tactician Cameron Appleton was delighted with what the new crew achieved,
Appleton enthused, "It was one of the best structured and beneficial weeks for a long time, with six other teams all working hard towards the start of the 52 SUEPR SERIES season. One of the best things was the weather cooperated. For the Alkedo group Andrea Lacorte new team one of the first things was overcoming a huge hurdle was setting up a new mast after we dropped our rig in an early March training session. There were a lot of things which had to come together perfectly for us to be able to train, so setting up the rig was critical and so we have to thank all those who made that possible, to Future Fibres, Rig Pro and our shore team - especially them - and our project manager Matteo De Luca. It was wonderful to get back on the race course to prepare for the season. So our objectives for the week were getting the rig in and tuned and understand the differences there for our sail shapes. And then secondly our new keel fin which we have been working on which developed over the winter along with many other teams who have modified their appendages. So there were a lot of answers to be had, goals met in learning to sail with each other as a new team coming together. It is a blend of some ex Interlodge sailors plus the Italian Vitamina team. So it was really good to get on board and work together sailing against and with some other teams. It was a wonderful week with a lot achieved topped with some good racing."
From the Alegre afterguard Nic Asher, concurred, "We just checked off some of the changes we made over the winter and had some good tuning days with Provezza and a couple of other boats and finished off with three days of racing run by Maria which was really good. We did not miss a day to the weather which was good and so all in all we are happy. It was mainly light winds and then towards the end of the week there was more wind. But, to be fair, the light was goo for us. We have made a few changes below the waterline and then we have a new sail designer in Juan Garay so that is quite a different change in philosophy. So it was a positive week. I think we feel like we are in a good place with the team and are after this week have got ourselves into a good starting position."
Müller-Spreer: "...best possible shape"
With a settled team which has made no changes to their successful crew line up, 2023 champions and 2024 title runners up Platoon Aviation are one of the teams to have updated their appendage package. They left Valencia full of confidence, Harm Müller-Spreer owner-driver Platoon Aviation smiled, 'Having made changes to our set up over the winter we were pleased to validate our choices during an excellent week on the water. The boat felt really good in all the conditions we encountered and we feel ready to start the season confident we are in the best possible shape'
And from the Hong Kong team Alpha + which showed strongly in the middle of the season Luke Van Der Kamp notes "Our week was good. The big box to tick was getting together as a crew as we have new crew members so just dialling everything in. The crew sailed well, we felt fast on the water and in our manoeuvres. Being a training week we simplified our tactics a bit and that paid of and so who knows if that will pay off on the race course for the season. The boat felt fast and the other goal was dialling in our rig settings which we feel we struggled with a little last year."
Champions getting ready
Out of Mallorca American Magic Quantum Racing had a good range of conditions finishing their session with some solid breeze on the Bay of Palma.
James Lyne, coach, reported afterwards, "We had a very good training session in Palma with American Magic Quantum Racing. It was really focused on the race sails, making sure the shapes and geometry fits were good and so we ticked through our whole race inventory and we are pretty pleased with that. We have moved the rig into a different position this year and so a lot of our time was spent trying the rig in the new position and finding our what effect that had on the other performance variables on the boat and trying to work how to adjust the rig through the range of conditions. That was all good. And we have brought on quite a few crew members and so we were working deeply on the boat handling side so that we are ready to start our race training when we get to Saint Tropez. That will be the key thing when we get to Saint Tropez will be to get a race course in and start honing the afterguard of Terry, Victor, Harry and Sara, getting into the starting and the race tactics.
"It has been really good to have Terry and Sara on Windquest last week in Pensacola getting good practice in in the starting box. So we still have a lot to go until we are a competitive properly this year. So we have a few really hard days of work as soon as we reach Saint Tropez to get up to race pace. We have good fundamentals, the rig and the sails are good. We knew the modifications we did for the 2024 season on the boat are really very good. And so we go into 2025 with a fair amount of confidence but obviously it's a new team and we will have to see how that goes under the pressure or racing, but all in all we have the base blocks in place, now we have to do a lot of race work. It is a long season. We are not going to put a lot of pressure on ourselves at the first event and come out of the blocks flying. But at each event it is about getting better and being in the hunt at the last event of the year."