52 Super Series, Gladiator wins in Puerto Portals

Puerto Portals – Tony Langley’s British flagged Gladiator team made it two wins in a row today when they overturned a three points deficit over the one and only race sailed to add the Puerto Portals 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week title to the Rolex TP52 World Championship which they secured in Newport RI USA some six weeks ago.

Buoyed by the confidence of their worlds success and armed with a quick, well optimised boat they were able to get the better of Harm Müller-Spreer’s Platoon Aviation crew who came off second best today – only losing on tie break to their British rivals – but most of all they will rue two penalties in consecutive races on Friday. These red flags accounted for 18 of the 24 point aggregate they landed on the penultimate day of racing on the Bay of Palma.

To their credit, once again at this fourth regatta of the five which comprise the 2024 52 SUPER SERIES season, Gladiator started best of the fleet with Guillermo Parada on the helm which more often than not allowed them to execute their game plan. That was the case today. After a delay waiting for a gentle 8-9kts SW’ly breeze to build Gladiator were able to start at the committee boat, right hand end of the line and break early to the right side of the upwind.

Although Eric de Turckheim’s Teasing Machine led all the way around the course, with Gladiator second round the first windward mark and Platoon Aviation third, the title was still headed to Germany. But as they sensed the encroaching dirty air from the boats behind them Platoon gybyed away to the left of the downwind and ended up losing their title rivals.

Finishing fifth to Gladiator’s second the two finished on equal points – 40 after 9 races – but that final second proved decisive in favour of the British crew which now leads the 2024 circuit standings by eight clear points ahead of Doug DeVos’s Quantum Racing powered by American Magic.

The US team once more went into the final race of the final day with a fighting chance of their first regatta win together, also three points behind Platoon Aviation. But the German team bounced the Americans back to the left of them on the first beat and Quantum Racing powered by American Magic rounded the WW1 turn in 13^th from 13^th. They rallied to a seventh position to finish up third overall.

Guillermo Parada, Gladiator’s helm smiled: “It’s the first time it has come for me like this (winning two 52 SUPER SERIES regattas in a row) so it is a bit special,  a new feeling. Obviously we are really pleased. It was a tough week. Palma has become a little bit trickier than I remember. We have known the island for many, many years and somehow it is changing over the last few years. It was a very demanding week and we kept our nerve. We had a good start and were able to manage the fleet and the geometry of the race course and read the conditions well and in the end we pulled it off and so we are very, very happy.”
Of executing their game plan today he said, “We believed in the right side of the course before we left the dock today. So we knew that if it was to the right of 200 degrees we wanted to go right and so we practiced a couple of starts at the race committee and it was good enough to secure us a good place on the first beat.”
“ I think the boat is going well and we did good races when they really counted. Everybody had their up and downs but when it was key we did it and that made the difference in the end.
I am not thinking about Valencia and the last regatta of the season at all, now it is time to enjoy and relax a little.”

Platoon Aviation’s Mallorcan strategist Jordi Calafat grimaced, “Are we disappointed? Before we came here we would probably have signed for a second but going into today with a three points lead and only one race and rounding the top mark third behind Gladiator and then we lost our lane and got into traffic a bit of the downwind, a lot of boats gybing on top of us and Gladiator just being able to be in front of the pack, it proved a tough race. But in the end this is definitely a step in the right direction in terms of racing better and knowing the boat better. But it is still not enough and we still have some work to do.”

And Victor Diaz de Leon, Quantum Racing powered by American Magic skipper-tactician concluded,  “We were so hoping to get the win overall today but Gladiator and Platoon sailed really well. We had a little bit of a tough start in the middle of the line and Platoon did a good job of being patient to hurt us when n we wanted to go right on a right favoured track and it seemed everyone knew it. We actually rounded the top mark last after making some bad decisions on the first beat. But I am really happy with how the team rallied and I am really happy how we came back to seventh.”

The final regatta starts in Valencia on Monday September 23^rd

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