New leader at 52 SUPER SERIES Zadar

Zadar, Croatia (June 23, 2018) – Tina Plattner, Ed Baird and the crew of 2018 52 SUPER SERIES debutants Phoenix have given themselves a fighting chance of winning the second circuit regatta of the season after delivering another consistent, low scoring day at the Zadar Royal Cup in Croatia.

If she could steer the new generation Botin design to overall victory and leave closest rivals Platoon and Luna Rossa in the shade, she would mark a hatful of ‘firsts’, including being the first female helm ever to win a TP52 circuit regatta and the first helm to triumph at their first ever 52 SUPER SERIES regatta as well as being the first ever South African team to win on the world’s leading grand prix circuit.

As she stepped from the Phoenix to enjoy the ‘sundowner’ at Zadar’s D-Marin Dalmacija’s chic Portus Beach Club, which is as much part of her personal decompression routine as the hard and fast performance processes that America’s Cup winner Ed Baird has helped establish among the hugely experienced crew, Plattner remains quietly low key, bubbling with enthusiasm at already having wildly exceeded all her expectations.

“There’ll be no more than two drinks and go to bed early tonight,” she grins, “We will take tomorrow the same as we’ve taken every other day. We’ll go out there, we’ll have fun, and just take it a race at a time.”

Across two very different races today – one in a gentle NW’ly and a second in a brisker, exciting 15 to 20kts strong thermal – Phoenix finished fourth in the first contest and then won the breezier race. Their five points aggregate for the day was only matched by three times champions Quantum Racing, the winners of last month’s season opener in Šibenik, just down the coast. With Harm Müller-Spreer’s world champions Platoon racking up 14 pts for the day, and Luna Rossa 12, the Plattner family’s Phoenix leads into Sunday’s finale by three points over Platoon, and five on Luna Rossa.

Of their strategy for Sunday’s showdown with two of the circuit’s big guns, Baird cautions:

“We have to see what kind of day it is, so far every day has been a little different. There’s been strange things going on out there. Nobody is familiar with this race course so we’re just trying to not make too many mistakes.”

Baird has been decisive, but measured in their choices on a challenging new race area teams. They have stayed out of trouble and the boat handling has been well up to scratch, commensurate with an outfit that benefited from 10 hard days of two boat training and tuning before early May’s PalmaVela regatta and the Šibenik regatta, which father Hasso steered.

Luna Rossa dropped from the regatta leadership to third after their two weakest results of the event, tactician Vasco Vascotto explaining:

“The reality is that we sailed worse than usual. The last race I think is the first time in the season that we lost boats, we slipped down the fleet, but the first race was okay, we made a couple of mistakes but this can happen, it was very shifty today. The last race we missed opportunities. This is the game though and tomorrow we need to go on the water and learn from the lessons that we had today and try to make it a little better.”

Andy Soriano’s Alegre team won their first race of the season on the Alegre when they passed Gladiator at the top of the final run, while Phoenix once more timed their passage to gain the right of the first beat well and enjoyed a good early advantage.

Tina Plattner revealed:

“It is quite a daunting fleet to try to come and step into for the first time. You should have seen us last week all eight of them were saying ‘don’t be so nervous it’ll be okay!”

And of helping to settle the driver’s butterlflies Baird explains:

“That’s a matter of just making sure we’re ready for the situations that come up. We tried really hard in Palma and before this event here to just go through as many of the situations that we could and put Tina in the pressure positions and kept saying to her and the whole team ‘this whole sport is about making mistakes, we’re going to make mistakes, it’s just about making a few less than the other guys. You have to realise you can’t put the pressure on yourself to be perfect. It’s never going to happen. We’re not perfect at all, there’s lots of things we can do better, but we’re good enough at the moment to be doing well.”

Standings after six races:

52 SUPER SERIES – Results – Facebook

The 52 SUPER SERIES is established as the world’s leading grand prix monohull yacht racing circuit. The 2018 season will mark the seventh season of the 52 SUPER SERIES which grew from the ashes of the TP52 MedCup which finished in 2011 when the principal sponsor withdrew.

2018 52 SUPER SERIES Calendar:
Sibenik 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week – May 23-27 – Sibenik, Croatia
52 SUPER SERIES Zadar Royal Cup – June 20-24 – Zadar, Croatia
Rolex TP52 World Championship Cascais 2018 – July 17-21 – Cascais, Portugal
Puerto Portals 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week – August 21-25 – Mallorca, Spain
52 SUPER SERIES Valencia Sailing Week – September 18-22 – Valencia, Spain

Source: 52 SUPER SERIES