Tuning for 52 SUPER SERIES season start

When the highly anticipated 2026 racing season starts with Puerto Portals 52 SUPER SERIES Sailing Week on the Bay of Palma, the 14 teams representing 11 different nations will have had every opportunity to be fully prepared for what promises to be the closest fought, most exciting season ever. The regatta runs May 4-9, 2026.

Most of the teams tested and trained in Valencia and Palma but they have the chance to make final tuning adjustments and polish up starts, and maneuvers and get attuned to the bigger fleet size.

The pressure will be on from Day 1. In a bigger fleet – at the same time last year in Saint-Tropez there were 11 boats – it will be all too easy to build a big, weighty score during the opening days of the season.

Racing looks set to see mixed conditions. It will be the first time the season has opened from Puerto Portals and the Bay of Palma in the early season can be hard to read.

Platoon’s Olympic gold medal winning, Palma-based strategist Jordi Calafat notes, “It looks like we might not see the typical Palma sea breeze, forecast is still looking a little bit far ahead, but so far it does not look like a typical scenario for the beginning of May. May can often see good sea breezes as the sea is still cold and the land heats up. We might see some rain and rain is always associated with tricky winds. We might see some land breezes for a few days which will be tricky.”

And Calafat contends, “We are looking forwards to it. It is an impressive fleet with 14 boats on the start line and so starting will be so important, we need to start well and be consistent. There will be more points than normal, it can be high scoring.”

Three new teams will be looking to find their marks early. Pieter Heerema’s Dutch flagged No Way Back may be the 2025 championship winning American Magic Quantum Racing and the team is 75 per cent sailors carrying on from last year. Morgan Larson returns for this week to reprise a winning partnership with Terry Hutchinson with Michele Ivaldi navigating.

It will be doubly exciting for the Swedish Trinity team, debuting on their brand new, freshly launched boat. They have the ultra calm, super consistent America’s Cup winner Ed Baird as tactician but will surely take time to make an impression near the top of the fleet but in shifty, unsettled breezes it could a big test of afterguard skills and focus rather than a boatspeed race. So if opportunities might knock for the new Brazilians on Caballo Loco, the former Phoenix, they proved in training they have the smarts and speed to capitalize.

Winners of the first regatta of 2025, Tony Langley’s Gladiator have re-configured their afterguard with Guillermo Parada steering, Langley working with Victor Diaz de Leon on tactics and strategy.

Harm Müller-Spreer’s Platoon, 2023 champions, are looking to bounce back from a difficult last season which Calafat describes as the ‘worst year n our history’. Like many in the fleet Platoon has a new keel fin. “Last year we did something wrong to end up where we did, it was a strange season and Harm and myself did not do all the races, we had some bad moments but we sailed OK in Portals and Puerto Cervo, we were close on points but not with a good final result.”

Runners up last year, Takashi Okura’s Sled were very happy with their boat and set up at the end of last season and, with the same dependable, consistent afterguard have a realistic hope of winning the season title and, or the world titles they lifted in 2021.

“We have spent time on sail design through the winter and upgraded some systems but in terms of upgrades in terms of ‘bang for the bucks’ we did not feel they were worth it versus having fresh sails. There are more options to gain that possible one boat length per beat from sails and rig set up. We changed our keel last year and are very happy with what we have under the water, that’s for sure,” Don Cowie, Sled’s project manager and mainsheet trimmer confirms.

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2026 Teams
Alegre (GBR) – Andy Soriano
Alkedo (ITA) – Andrea Lacorte
Alpha + (HKG) – Shawn and Tina Kang
Caballo Loco (BRA) – Mauro Dottori / Fabio Cotrim
Gladiator (GBR) – Tony Langley
Paprec (FRA) – Jean-Luc Petithuguenin
Platoon (GER) – Harm Müller-Spreer
Provezza (TUR) – Ergin Imre
No Way Back (NED) – Pieter Heerema
Sled (USA) – Takashi Okura
Teasing Machine (FRA) – Eric de Turckheim
Trinity (SWE) – Joakim Sundberg
Vayu (THA) – – Whitcraft Family

2026 52 SUPER SERIES
May 4-9 – Mallorca, Spain
June 15-20 – Sardinia, Italy (World Championship)
July 20-25 – Canary Islands, Spain
August 24-29 – Canary Islands, Spain
October 5-10 – Valencia, Spain

The 52 SUPER SERIES was established in 2012 and is considered the world’s leading grand prix monohull yacht racing circuit. The circuit grew from the ashes of the TP52 MedCup which hit the stops in 2011 when the principal sponsor withdrew.

Source: 52SS