TP52 state of the nation

At the end of season we look at the Breitling MedCup and the state of sailing's top fleet racing circuit

From its simple beginning as a sled-type class to get crews hurriedly to Hawaii, the TP52 has come on in leaps and bounds, thanks to its take-up in Spain and the Breitling MedCup circuit. From 11 boats racing on the MedCup circuit during its first season in 2005, to 22 in 2006, this year has seen the meteoric rise of the class begin to plateau, with 24 boats the maximum seen on a start line and with "at least 25" expected for 2008. Saying this, it remains a formidable turn-out of boats costing around 1.5 million Euros apiece, with mostly professional crews and sizeable annual running costs.

The TP52 class is now where the highest quality fleet racing is to be found in our sport. Not only are the boats becoming more and more refined but with the America's Cup over - the MedCup series this year was wisely shoehorned into the latter half of the season to avoid conflict with the Cup - many more Cup sailors have joined the teams. And with two boat testing banned from the 33rd America's Cup, it appears that several more Cup teams are expected to be competing on the circuit in 2008.

"On the water the level has stepped up a little bit, but not much because even last year there were a lot of potentially good teams," claims Nacho Postigo, one of the trio who run the MedCup and who is also navigator on Vasco Vascotto's Mutua Madrilena. "But the only thing about the on-the-water side was that this year I would have bet on eight teams to win the circuit, whereas in previous years only three or four teams could win."

Ian Walker, skipper of Eamon Conneely's Patches agrees with this: "The standard has gone up a lot this year. We’ve improved a lot from where we were. A lot of the teams have got better sailors in, obviously the AC has finished, all the new boats are quick."



Win for Sweden

The 2007 Breitling MedCup circuit was won by Torbjörn Törnqvist's Artemis and, as was the case with Peter de Ridder's Mean Machine last year, the Geneva-based Swede is an amateur helmsman. But while de Ridder has a lengthy background in keelboat racing and typically spends as many days a year driving boats as most pros, this was Törnqvist's first year helming a grand prix race boat.

Most view Artemis' winning ingredient as being Russell Coutts who, in addition to whispering in Törnqvist's ear during regattas, was architect of the campaign, got Judel-Vrolijk in to design the boat and Cooksons to build it. "I think there is a lot in the building of the boats and the finishing of them," as Coutts told us. "This is partly a weight accuracy issue but also one of alignment - almost a one design approach - making sure the boat is nicely symmetric and the appendages are put on properly and haven’t got twists in them. And making sure the rig is in the right place and on centre line. It all adds up."

And also the quality of the Artemis crew no doubt helped - pretty much all to a man ex-BMW Oracle or Team New Zealand including: Anthony Merrington, Chris Hosking, David Brooke, Goran Collman, James Baxter, Jared Henderson, Joe Spooner, Mickey Eckhart, Peter Bresnan, Philip Jamieson, Richard Bouzaid and Ross Halcrow.

One of the reassuring aspects is that while Judel-Vrolijk appear to be the most successful designers (and the most prolific) on the circuit this year, the podium places in this year's MedCup were held by yachts from three different design houses.

Pos	Boat	Owner	Nat	Designer	Year	Pnts
1	ARTEMIS	Torbjorn Torqnvist	SWE	Judel-Vrolijk	2007	199
2	CxG COORACIÓN CAIXAGALICIA	Vicente Tirado	ESP	Botin Carkeek	2007	207
3	PATCHES	Eamon Conneely	IRE	Reichel Pugh	2007	244
4	BRIBON	Jose Cusi	ESP	Judel-Vrolijk	2007	262
5	VALLE ROMANO - MEAN MACHINE	Peter de Ridder	MON	Judel-Vrolijk	2006	262
6	MUTUA MADRILEÑA	Vasco Vascotto	ESP	Botin Carkeek	2007	290
7	STAY CALM	Stuart Robinson	GBR	Judel-Vrolijk	2007	313
8	SIEMENS	Alberto Roemmers	A/E	Judel-Vrolijk	2007	316
9	BALEARIA	Adolfo Utor	ESP	Botin Carkeek	2005	392
10	ANONIMO Q8	Riccardo Simoneschi	ITA	Judel-Vrolijk	2006	399
11	CRISTABELLA	John Cook	GBR	Judel-Vrolijk	2007	446
12	BIGAMIST 6	Peedro Mendonca	POR	Reichel Pugh	2005	499
13	RUSAL - Synergy	Alexey Nikolaev	RUS	Botin Carkeek	2006	528
14	CAM, CAJA MEDITERRÁNEO	Fernando Leon	ESP	Botin Carkeek	2007	579
15	PLATOON	Harm Muller-Spreer	GER	Judel-Vrolijk	2006	598
16	ONO	Inaki Castaner	ESP	Botin Carkeek	2005	611
17	GLORY	John Buchan	USA	Judel-Vrolijk	2007	638
18	WINDQUEST	Doug de Vos	USA	Botin Carkeek	2006	705
19	VALARS	Serguei Shevtsov	RUS	Farr	2005	717
20	TAU CERAMICA-ANDALUCIA	Javier Banderas, Rafael Diaz	ESP	Farr	2005	760
21	AIFOS	Jaime Rodriguez-Toubes	ESP	Farr	2005	796
22	C-QUADRAT - ASTRO	Rainer Wilhelm	AUS	Brenta	2006	838
23	BAMBAKOU	John Coumantaros	USA	Frers	2006	873

Breitling MedCup 2007 final results

And thankfully is that it wasn't only new hardware winning races. Peter de Ridder's 2006 generation Valle Romano-Mean Machine has been right up throughout the season and may even have podiumed had she not scored a double disqualification in one of the 2x point scoring two part coastal races. Equally impressive is the result of Adolfo Utor's Balearia, a 2005-generation Botin and Carkeek design that finished ninth overall.

Nacho Postigo sang the praises of Utor's team where Gonzalo Araujo is skipper and Thierry Peponnet has been calling tactics: "They have a three year old boat but a good crew and they have made good modifications to the boat. Of course they haven't led the circuit, but they are ninth which is good for a three year old boat. We had a sistership of that boat which was very very radical - it was a very bad boat when it was choppy and it was very hard to sail it upwind because it only had one mode which was fast! If someone tacked to leeward of you you had better tack and disappear! And the guys have fixed the problems and after three years the boat can still win races. They were the winners of the first race this year .They have won a couple more races since then and finished several times in the top three or top five. So if you get a good crew and are consistent in the starts - which is key - then you can win even if the boat is not the latest generation."

Stay Calm owner Stuart Robinson was happy with how their season had gone: "We’d like to be winning, but we are competitive, we just need to be more consistent. We are winning races this year, which we weren’t last year. We were a bit unlucky in Portugal with the main halyard. Without that 22nd we would have finished in the top four. Next year, we'll probably practice a little bit more before the MedCup starts. It starts earlier, so it is a bit better. This year has been a bit packed."

This season has seen Boewe Bekking taking the helm of Bribon, King Juan-Carlos of Spain only having raced the two regattas in Palma. The team has also benefitted from sailing a new Judel-Vrolijk design this year that has taken them to fourth place overall at the final tally.

"I think it has gone very well," Bekking told us. "I think the boat is such a big difference compared to the old boat. It sails very fast upwind. It still needs a lot of work and we haven’t been sailing as much as some of the other teams, but we have been learning a lot, and the overall performance has been going up over the entire year. Downwind we are always a bit sluggish but we can build some new spinnakers and we are learning every time again."

As to the MedCup circuit in general Bekking is impressed: "The whole set-up is fantastic. As long as you have a good docking space and a good race committee that’s all you want as a sailor. Of course when you have all the facilities afterwards - there are so many sponsors involved, the set-up is brilliant."



With their new Reichel-Pugh designed yacht, the Patches team had a good season, claiming the third position on the podium, but according to skipper Ian Walker they achieved this in a very different way to the 2006 season.

"We finished third, fourth, fourth, fifth and fourth in the five regattas and it is consistent, it is good, but we need some race wins and we need to try and win a regatta. That’s what we managed last year. Last year we won two regattas and had one very bad one. This year we were more consistent but we lacked race wins." It was only in race six at Hyeres, the final MedCup regatta of the season, that Patches finally scored a race win.

Walker reckons that their performance this year has been a reflection of their Reichel Pugh-designed boat. "We are okay all the time, but what we don’t seem to have is one condition where we take off. We had that last year. In 12 knots we were very fast and could sail conservatively and expect to win races. We haven’t got that this year but we have got a better all-round performance."

As to the performance of the new Patches compared to the competition Walker reckoned they have lacked speed in stronger conditions. "It has been a bit of a windier year than forecast. We moded our boat for lighter winds and this year has been relatively windy. Then it is just sailing - starting, decisions you make and not making any boat handling mistakes. Every boat seems to have their day - it is question of being consistent and not making as many mistakes as the others."

Among the more prolific designers the Judel-Vrolijk designs have generally been better in stronger winds, while the Botin & Carkeek boats had the upper hand in the light. As Nacho Postigo explains: "You look at the boats and they don’t look radically different, the box rule is quite tight. But there are little differences that make a big difference on the water. You go to the designers and you have to target what wind speed you want the boat for. We have seen this year that the new boats from Vrolijk have done particularly well above about 10-12 knots, while the new B&C boats are doing well in 8-12 knots. At 10 knots you have a crossover between the two boats. But it is very small. If we make a good start in big wind and arrive at the weather mark ahead of the Judel Vrolijk boats they will never get ahead and it is the same in light winds the other way round."

Bouwe Bekking's reckons this has evolved over the season: "If you look at a boat like Caixa[a B&C design], they are very fast in the lighter stuff, but I think they changed their sails to be strong as well in the medium. We have been working the other way around. So all the fleet has come together. The JV boats are a little bit more powerful so you would expect them to be better higher up the range, but they are going better in the light now as well. But there’s a lot in the sails and how you set the boats up."

Of course over the season the newer boats have shown a greater improvement than the older boats, although this is to be expected. Even if the class are in denial about this, it seems that to stand the best chance of winning one needs a new boat each year, but this may not be the case next year. Due to the very short TP52 season this year some teams feel that they have not had the opportunity to get the most from their boats and are therefore happy to stick with them for another year.



New boats for 2008

And so on to the burning question of - who is getting new boats for 2008? Already Peter de Ridder has got a new Judel Vrolijk boat coming from Salthouse Marine in Auckland, while there is another new Artemis to be built and a new Platoon- all three boats for existing owners in the fleet and all presumably Judel Vrolijk designs. In addition to this there are believed to be two more new Reichel Pugh designs and two new Botin & Carkeeks on order at present. According to TP52 Class Manager Rob Whelan, several owners are looking to build new but can't because builders have slots already booked to build new Cup boats, and are presently busy buildling Volvo boats. Really?

Otherwise there are rumours of anything from eight to 15 new boats. Doug de Vos is considering the build of a new Windquest while many of the smaller teams are looking to trade up. Already season winner Artemis has been sold to Javier Banderas and Rafael Diaz' Tau Ceramica team. Ikani Castaner's Ono and Riccardo Simoneschi's Anomino teams are believed to be in the market for new or newer boats too, so a fair amount of musical chairs may go on in the secondhand market. A number of teams such as Mutua Madrilena say they will build afresh if they can sell their existing boats.

There are rumours of John Kilroy's Samba Pa Ti TP52 either building a new boat to campaign on the MedCup circuit or bringing over their existing boat (but this was the rumour too last year).

There may be another team from Germany in addition to property developer Harm Muller Spreer's Platoon, depending upon who ends up becoming title sponsor of the MedCup in 2008 - the contract with Brietling expired at the end of this season and Audi is known to be in the running for next year.

A French team is also trying to get organised, with an owner keen but looking to cover running costs through sponsorship. In addition to Stuart Robinson's Stay Calm and John Cook's Cristabella, two more teams from the UK are considering competing. One is believed to be Charles Dunstone who already campaigns the modified TP52 Red in the UK and this would make sense given the Carphone Warehouse boss' recently announced tie up with TeamOrigin.

But the most interesting new entries next year are likely to be in the form of Cup teams. With two boat testing prohibited in the 33rd America's Cup, several teams are now believed to be looking at the MedCup circuit to keep their crews race ready in a highly competitive environment in boats probably much more akin to the nimble new generation of 90ft Cup boats than the previous Version 5 lead mines.

"If you can’t do two boat training in the AC it makes sense to keep your people fresh by sailing here," says Nacho Postigo. "Maybe we should do a big final with match racing," he adds half-joking.

Team New Zealand are expected to return to the class in a major way. American father and son, Fred and Steve Howe who competed in 2006 (but didn't this year in order to focus on their Farr 40 campaign) are believed to be returning with a new Warpath which will almost certainly be helmed by Dean Barker and a crew of Kiwi Cup sailors. Peter de Ridder's Mean Machine is already a Team New Zealand boat with Ray Davies calling tactics, but it is unlikely the make-up of this will change. De Ridder, winner of the MedCup circuit in 2006, certainly has no reason to get off the wheel.

There are equally strong rumours of BMW Oracle building two new boats to campaign in 2008, although it will be interesting to see if one of these is the new Artemis. If not, then Russell Coutts may find himself rather thinly spread! There are weaker reports of Alinghi also getting involved with the circuit.

United Internet Team Germany, or whatever the German Cup team end up calling themselves, are also said to be getting involved, and again, it may be that they join forces with Platoon or have their own Audi-sponsored boat - this may be more likely if Audi end up as title sponsor for next year's circuit.

Typically most reckon there will be around 25 boats competing on the MedCup circuit in 2008 and it is hoped attendance will be more consistent. This year we saw the smallest attendance - 16 boats - at the Hyeres regatta, the last event on the circuit as it was outside of Spain. Several teams lower down the overall results table chose not to play while some private owners such as King Harald of Norway and his Fram, John Coumantaros and Bambakou and Doug de Vos with Windquest, never planned to do all the regattas on the circuit from the outset. Quite what the organisers can do to get a more consistent entry list is hard to pinpoint, but at least next season the calendar will be less frantic, with no America's Cup to conflict with, even though the MedCup organisers are still waiting for ACM's announcement over when the two 2008 Acts will be held.

However even 25 boats still presents a significant logistical problem to the organisers. How many marinas can accommodate this size of fleet and put the boats close to the centre of town, as the organisers desire? As Nacho Postigo says: "25-27 boats is the maximum number. I would love to have that problem, but it is a problem to get moorings for more than that number and to get space for containers is a big big problem."

Tomorrow in part two of this article we speak to Class Manager Rob Weiland about changes to the class going forwards and to the MedCup's Marketing guru Fernando Inigo about how the MedCup will develop shoreside in 2008