Road warriors convene for TP52 Worlds

With the 2022 TP52 World Championship on June 21-25 in Portugal on the Atlantic waters off Cascais, the nine boat fleet will see their professional crews arrive from all points of the globe.

At one extreme is Australia’s Tom Slingsby, tactician on Hasso Plattner’s Phoenix, who arrives from a stunning SailGP win in Chicago on the high speed, high octane F50 foiling catamarans.

“It is tough changes classes all the time,” admits Slingsby. “I probably have the biggest jump coming straight from SailGP. For me I flew in at midday, got picked up, straight to the marina. I got one practice race in now and two practice starts but I feel confident enough going forwards.”

Simon Fry joins British flagged Gladiator directly from second place in the Dragon World Championship.

“The key for me is to maintain the highest level of your skill, do a lot of different sailing in different classes so you stay sharp in your sailing,” notes Fry

Platoon’s America’s Cup winning trimmer Ross Halcrow came straight to Cascais from winning the Six Metre World Championship in Galicia and is a key member of the dominant ClubSwan 50 team of the moment.

“It is good to be sailing in big fleets like the Swan 50 but the TP52 is more high performance and technical, the apparent wind is forward and so you sail a different tactical game to get downwind,” observed Halcrow.

“I have fun with what I do, like the 6 Metre is old school, square the pole back downwind, the Swan the apparent wind is aft and I enjoy these diverse sailing techniques. That is what makes our sport so much fun.”

As the defending World Champions, Takashi Okura’s Sled crew was recently in the states to win the 12 Metre Class at New York YC’s 168th Annual Regatta.

“The TP52 class is such close racing and it gets tighter every year,” said Sled’s mainsheet trimmer Don Cowie. “By comparison, sailing the 12 Metre was quite relaxing. It was fantastic, very enjoyable. They are cool boats, there we were on the 1980 America’s Cup winner Freedom.

“Coming back here is relatively easy but going back in time on to the 12M was hard, this TP52 racing is normal. Squaring the pole back and sailing 175 degrees, that is kinda different.”

Race details – Entry list – Facebook

52 SUPER SERIES 2022 Schedule
May 23-28 – BAIONA 52 SUPER SERIES SAILING WEEK – Baiona, Spain
June 20-25 – ROLEX TP52 WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP CASCAIS – Cascais, Portugal
July 21-26 – PUERTO PORTALS 52 SUPER SERIES SAILING WEEK – Puerto Portals, Mallorca
September 26-October 1 – SCARLINO 52 SUPER SERIES SAILING WEEK – Scarlino, Italy
October 24-29 – BARCELONA 52 SUPER SERIES SAILING WEEK – Barcelona, Spain

Source: 52 Super Series