(Still) growing like Topsy

Yes, some teams expect to do only a few selected events, but they are there testing the water in advance of a full season as soon as 2027.

Once again this year’s programmes will kick off at full speed in Puerto Portals, Mallorca following training out of Valencia for Alegre, Provezza, the new Brazilian team of Caballo Loco, the French duo Paprec and Teasing Machine, while rivals No Way Back, Gladiator, Platoon and Alkedo have all been warming up in Palma.

Dutch Dragon Gold Cup winner Pieter Heerema has taken on the 2025 championship-winning Quantum Racing programme, keeping most of the personnel. Skip Baxter is on mainsail, Michele Ivaldi is back as navigator and Julien Cressant – like Baxter a Bella Mente regular – is on as a grinder. James Lyne, Quantum’s longtime super-coach will oversee No Way Back’s progress.

‘We just completed our first training session as a “new” team,’ Lyne reported. ‘The primary goal was getting Pieter on the helm working well with the speed team and afterguard and sorting the choreography of manoeuvres; the second objective was looking at some development sails that came out of our learnings from last year. Brett Jones has led this development alongside the trimmers. All in all a good shakedown of crew and boat.

‘Now we move into some testing with Gladiator and Platoon, where we can check in on relative performance. This will be speed focused, as the 52 Super Series teaches us year in year out that you’re not going to win if you’re not fast through the full range of conditions. Then as we move to Palma Vela and the first Super Series event in Portals we become more race focused, with an emphasis on starting and finding the right mode ASAP after the gun. We know that if you win the metric at two minutes after the start at each regatta you have a good chance of winning events and the season.’

Perhaps the most exciting programme will be Joakim Sundberg’s Swedish flagged team. Sundberg is a young and successful cyber security expert who, though with limited racing experience, has aspirations to climb into the upper echelons of the 52 Super Series fleet as quickly as possible.

While their brand new Botín-designed Trinity Racing has been in build at King Marine in Valencia, under the exacting eyes of Micky Costa, the crew have been training out of Palma in a chartered Cape 31, running dozens of starts and first beats with a fleet of six of the identical one-designs.

Sundberg has also made some astute choices of personnel, not least in bringing on Ed Baird as tactician. Set aside Ed’s enviable record with Quantum Racing – plus that 2007 America’s Cup win with Alinghi – note too his contributions to the successes of Gladiator, Phoenix and Interlodge over the years, especially getting the best from owner-drivers. The new Swedish TP52 is a development from the Alegre/ Platoon hull as Adolfo Carrau of Botín Partners notes, ‘We decided to use the existing 2025 hull mould at King Marine, sister - ship to the latest Alegre and Platoon, but we designed a brand new deck for Trinity, reducing deck camber to improve aerodynamics.

The other emphasis was weight reduction and, working with Micky Costa, we simplified the deck shape in several areas to reduce unnecessary core bonding. Most of those weight savings were reinvested to stiffen the deck and hull further in the endless pursuit of headstay tension, working with Pure Engineering.

‘The R&D effort was mostly focused on appendage optimisation. With this fleet getting larger the boats need to excel at being able to hold tight lanes off the starting line but then be very fast once the bow is pressed down. During our 2024 America’s Cup work with Alinghi we developed new state-of-the-art 3D optimisation tools and these were used to design a brand new TP bulb which is quite a departure from our recent shapes. The new 2026 fin planform design is quite aggressive but very efficient at delivering sideforce with reduced drag. The lateral area and section thickness along the span were also optimised.

‘I am not sure that we will see the very best of the new boat in season 1, however; these boats are now so refined and complex it often takes until season 2 to hit the sweet spots.’

Trinity will use North Sails Sweden with design shared between Dave Lenz and Tore Lewander. The sailing team has a majority of Swedes, who have gone through the RC44 Artemis programme and the J Class Svea, plus America’s Cup-winning trimmer Ross Halcrow (from Platoon) and Jake Lilley, the Australian Finn double Olympian and SailGP racer. Trimming opposite Halcrow will be Anders Lewander from the Swedish North loft… ‘So we have plenty of muscle,’ smiles the Swedish sailmaker.

Guest and VIP programmes continue to be important to the 52 Super Series and so it is fantastic to welcome Palm Beach Motor Yachts as official Destination Partner for the five-regatta season, providing exclusive use of Palm Beach XII, a new Palm Beach 65 that will be at all the 2026 events as hospitality yacht for both owners and circuit/host venue guests. Palm Beach XII was in action earlier this season in home waters, supporting super maxi

Palm Beach XI – whose much talked about new C-foils from Juan K are now reported to be working ‘spectacularly well’. Palm Beach Motor Yachts was founded by Mark Richards, the Australian who skippered the renowned superyacht to multiple Sydney Hobart wins as Wild Oats and who we expect to see making guest appearances around the Mediterranean this summer.