GALICIA 52 SUPER SERIES ROYAL CUP – DAY 2 
Second at the first regatta of the season in Saint-Tropez, France last month, Takashi Okura’s Sled team today laid down a marker on the beautiful waters off Baiona, NW Spain as the top performers over the two official practice races sailed today on the eve of the GALICIA 52 SUPER SERIES ROYAL CUP.
Gusty northerly winds to 21kts, accompanied by a short swell with a chop on top, made for quite challenging conditions upwind whilst the rewards were really the first prolonged surfs of the season, a welcome experience after painfully light winds in the south of France in very early May.
Sled won the first practice race and were then second behind Platoon Aviation on the second rehearsal which had seen American Magic-Quantum Racing leading until the final leg.
In the breezy conditions it was clear that the world’s leading grand prix monohull circuit, the 52 SUPER SERIES, should be in for a treat for their second visit to this imposing, rugged corner of Spain.
Sled were fast today with coach Adam Beashel steering. Sled’s tactician is Italian Francesco Bruni who is really appreciating the change of scene, returning back out on to the Atlantic to a venue where he won the Spanish National Match Racing title in 2009, “The boat is going well and we have especially good speed upwind. Adam Beashel was steering today and he was doing a good job. But we are looking forwards to having Mr Okura in from tomorrow so we are excited about that. Weather-wise tomorrow should be a similar pattern. The left is good but it is not a one way track. And for sure every day seems to be a little different. We feel good here, we like the venue for sure. I like it here. Our takeaway from Saint Tropez is that we could have won that event but we made some mistakes on the last downwind. We are happy with how we finished overall but we really felt like we could have won.”
Melges: “Baiona is beautiful….”
With Harry Melges IV on the helm for the first time this season, American Magic-Quantum Racing were always in the top three or four at the mark roundings today and led the second short, single upwind-downwind practice race.
“We sailed really well in Saint Tropez where it was unfortunate that we did not get many races in,” Melges reported today, “We are really confident with our boatspeed and we are learning a lot every day. It would be silly to think we should not hope to be on the podium this event. It is always great to be back on the helm in the TP52 and of course this is my first time here in Baiona, Spain and it is such a beautiful place to sail. And the last few days it has been quite nice and windy which has been a nice change of pace for us. This is my first event steering a regatta, I did have a little bit of time training with this combination in Palma pre season and so I am really exited to get out there and put it all on the line. Other than the 52 SUPER SERIES, I am focussed on the Moth Worlds which are coming up after the Rolex TP52 World Championship on Cascais in July.”
Andy Horton, “….awesome a really cool place.”And both of the teams for which this GALICIA 52 SUPER SERIES ROYAL CUP is their first 52 SUPER SERIES event of the season were also up in the top half of the fleet most of the time, Andy Horton, tactician on Hasso and Tina Plattner’s Phoenix is another top sailor who is learning to appreciate the dynamic, challenging racing arena, especially in the northerly breeze which has been blowing for some days.
Horton asserts, “It is hard to know what we should be expecting. It is a while since I was with this group – in fact going back to Cape Town when we finished second with Hasso – so it is great to be back. It is such a tight team with a proud South African heart. We have been here a little while because we did not train in Valencia nor did we race in Saint Tropez. And the boat has been fully stripped back, re-faired, the engine rebuilt and we have a whole lot of new sails and so on. So we have been here a good few days and are getting back into it.
The course area is actually a little bit crazy. We see three evolutions throughout the day. It is all about the detail. We have his NE’ly gradient wind which wraps around the point 30 miles to the north of us, and then we have the heating inland which then affects how much it wraps around, bringing in anything from a 320 degrees wind to a NW’ly. And if there is a lot of gradient and not a lot of heating it will blow out of Vigo. And then there is another ‘ria’ or fjord to the north of Vigo and it might blow out of there. And there is a lot of swirling in the current. It is lovely to be here, to be somewhere a bit different, the people here are lovely and it is not expensive. It is awesome, just a really cool place.”
For the first day of racing, Tuesday, forecasts suggest the breezes will stay in the north but might be slightly lighter than we saw today, around 12knots. Racing for the Royal Cup runs through to Saturday and will feature 11 teams from nine nations. All the action is streamed daily from 15 minutes before the first start of the day, planned for 1300hrs local time each day.
