For "Azzurra" it seems that there is no time for complacency... they have not slept in the laurels... despite going first and having trained almost more than anyone, many days in Palma stayed in the water testing new candles

The Azzurra has soon shown that its title of last season puts it in a good way to fight again for the final triumph in 52 Super Series 2018. The Roemmers family sailboat won in the Palma Vela Regata which was a perfect test since in the waters of Palma they gathered up to seven of the new TP52. And he alerted others to what work should be in the 2018 season to aspire to triumph.

And the solvency image of the italoArgentines was seen during the seven sleeves of which the ballast race was recorded. They won with only 21 points, four less than the Quantum Racing who had Dean Barker in a row; while the current World Champion, the Platoon of Harm Müller-Spreer, the only Vrolijk design that premiered in Palma, was third.

Azzurra won three sleeves, Platoon two, while the Phoenix of German shipowner Hasso Plattner with Ed Baird to the tactic and the Sled of Takashi Okura, with Ray Davis to the tactic, won one. Winning the PalmaVela can be an indicator of what can come in the season and, more specifically, in the Sibenik race that begins next week in the Adriatic waters. It was already in 2015 when the previous island race was taken by Azzurra and won the season. The same thing happened in 2016 with the Quantum Racing.

The advantage in days of training that the Azzurra has had this preseason has been important. They sailed in Valencia in mid-March with the entire team. Even Santiago Lange, the tactic arrived to occupy the place of Vasco Vascotto, joined. They then trained the previous days in Palma in front of other Booty designs that are almost identical ships. This equality is the one that will make the 2018 season the closest and most competitive in history. The differences in terms of speed are minimal and the usual advantages that large teams had in other seasons have been dissipated.

10 / 05 / 2018: 11th Hour Racing and 52 Super Series renew their collaboration for three more years

The 52 Super Series water filtering system, which is done with equipment and headquarters, encourages the use of aluminium-filled bottles that have saved some 30,000 bottles of half a liter plastic each season (Photo Nico Martínez)

There is no doubt that the 2018 season of 52 Super Series is going to be the most exciting and brilliant of all that have been disputed to date. Nine new ships have been built this year and are already in their final preparation. There's going to be new high-quality equipment joining for the first time that's already the best monocasque circuit in the world. And the competition opens to new fans with the arrival of two new cities this season.

The races this season are going to be exciting, intense, fast, competitive... But, in addition to being at these levels of success in terms of participation, the circuit also wants to take a step forward in its already known message of sustainability, which they encourage by acting accordingly from the organization itself.

The agreement with 11th Hour Racing and, above all, the joint commitment to sustainability of both organizations have also made it the best global competition in terms of sustainability. To continue to be so, an agreement has been signed with 11th Hour Racing, in which collaboration is extended to the 2018-2019-2020 editions.

25 / 04 / 2018: The new TP52 "Alegre" launched into the family in Valencia... there are no limits

The Alegre crew has undergone some changes... especially in the tribune area where Jon Gunderson and Andy Hemmings have arrived who have moved to other positions to Noel Drenan and Kevin George... the Alegre will again sail with 14 crew members as he did last year.

The new TP52 of Andrés Soriano, the Alegre IV... was launched in Valencia and they did so discreetly, in family... with a paella and with all the hopes put on a sailboat built by Ximo López in Length Zero in Burriana (Castellón) and designed by Marcelino Botín.

This ship that the owner believes is a piece of crafts must be the platform from which the project will try to improve the somewhat disappointing results they had in 2017. The mast break in Porto Cervo was a very serious blow for the team that these days in Valencia has again felt the good vibrations that will drive them to make a great season in the challenging 2018 campaign of 52 Super Series.

To get out dark 2017 Soriano was one of the first to decide to build a new sailboat that in September already entered the shipyard. Almost seven months later the 'creature' has seen the light in Valencia, before going to Palma to sail in the PalmaVela where you will see the faces with nine other ships of the 52 Super Series of which seven will be new.

For these first compasses of the season the Alegre has been training in Valencia with the Sled, a team with which it has reached a collaboration agreement to which the Providenza de Ergin Imre can also join.

03 / 04 / 2018: The new TP52 "Azzurra" designed by Botín and "made in" Valencia, will be one of the powerful

"Azzurra" new unit this season under the baton of Marcelino Botín

The last four ships of the emblematic Italian-Argentine team have been born in the shipyards of King Marine, in the Valencian town of Alginet, with the construction direction of Miki Costa. The last three have left the computer and the master's degree of Marcelino Botín, the 2009 was Vrolijk. The four ships have been launched in mid-March and, of course, have started to navigate with the background noise of the Fallas firecrackers in the waters of the Valencia Navy where this season the 52 Super Series will close their season in September.

Every three years, on time, repeat the ritual... And this year it was playing back to the Fallas without seeing the Fallas... the new Azzurra is already in the water... has been the second new sailing boat of the 52 Super Series 2018 that has gone out to train, after the Takashi Okura Sled that did it almost a month ago in Auckland.

The custom is an asset on this team. The most important. The regularity and creation of a solid base of work and crew is the maximum of this project. This year they have had no choice but to make changes to the crew, two of their most important names have moved to Copa América teams. Vasco Vascotto (Luna Rossa) and Maciel Cichetti (Quantum) have gone and Santiago Lange and Grantz Lorentz have arrived, also known old. The tremendous gaps created by the two marches believe that they have been well sealed by two of the most experienced regatists and respected from the elite sailing landscape.

And at the head of the project is Guillermo Parada (Buenos Aires, 1967). The Argentine cane has the double function of carrying the cane of the boat in the water and carrying the cane of the project out of the liquid element. And Parada feels very comfortable with the philosophy of "keep-the-that-works..." and Azzurra "works." His last sailboat won two of the three editions of the 52 Super Series... so, in March, he returned to Valencia to try his new boat made in King Marine with Botto design.

28 / 03 / 2018: Directed by Vrolijk is built in Persico the new TP52 "Provides"

"Providenza" chooses its own path in search of the podium

Nacho Postigo is one of the most qualified Spanish specialists of the TP52 Class, which is also the navigator of the "Providenza," has manifested in the sense of the high level of the 52 Super Series 2018 this season, that it will be a very difficult task to be among the best.

In the last season, the "Providenza" of the Turkish shipowner Ergin Imre was the one who, along with the "Platoon," gave the quality jump in the fleet... Peter Holmberg's arrival at the cane of this TP52 helped a lot... so, the project fought for victory until the last moment in Key West and Porto Cervo, but it was in Puerto Portals that he gave the bell and won the Majorca race.

When it became clear that many of the projects were to be made a new ship in 2018, Imre did not want to leave his team with a lower weapon and sent Rolf Vrolijk a new TP52. The new "Providenza" is being built in the Italian town of Persico, and is one of the three ships that are made in this shipyard and one of the two new Dutch designs along with the Platoon. The construction is being controlled by the team's major trimmer, Chris Hosking, which with it already has seven TP52 built after the Illbruck, three Artemis, one Ran Racing and the last two Providers.

13 / 03 / 2018: "Sled" led by Takashi Okura the most mature project of the 52 Super Series

Sled comes from making two seven posts in the final ranking of the 52 Super Series in 2017 and 2016 while in 2015 it was third. Okura wants to go back to the podium and has signed some of the regatists who have left the Team New Zealand factory in recent years, including some of the Emirates Team New Zealand TP52.

The new Sled of the shipowner Takashi Okura has had the honour of being the first last generation ship of the 52 Super Series that has touched the water. The sailboat designed by the studio of Marcelino Botín and built in Core Builders Composites (New Zealand) made its pineapples in the sea of antipods on February 15. After a productive week of training the sailboat is already on a freighter to Valencia.

Don Cowie, an expert regatist of the Kiwis challenges in Copa America and also with a wide experience in the TP52 class, has been one of the team's leaders in the process of building the new sailboat along with Project Manager, Brad Marsh. The two have worked on the supervision of the sailboat that the shipyard of Tim Smyth and Mark Turner has built in New Zealand. After its construction and initial training in Auckland, Cowie is convinced that the ship is already ready to compete and dares to say that it is:"The best TP52 I've ever seen."

The early delivery and the first training in Auckland with all the crew will give them a small advantage. They also have to improve with training that they are going to do in Valencia in early May with other teams and, finally, have confirmed their presence in the PalmaVela with what all this previous work they believe will give them some advantage in the campaign premiere next May 23 in Croatia in the 2018 season of 52 Super Series. His preseason looks like the most complete of the fleet.

02 / 03 / 2018: The Caribbean shipowner Eduardo de Souza returns to the 52 Super Series

The Brazilian flag returns to stay in 52 Super Series with De Souza, Scheidt and its Onda

Eduardo de Souza Ramos returns to the 52 Super Series. The Brazilian shipowner, who already knows first hand the hardness and the very high degree of competitiveness, thinks that this season of return will be used in the knowledge of the ship and the race and also in gaining experience in a fleet as professional as that of the 52SS. And it does so with a new design by Marcelino Botín that will be built in the shipyards that King Marine has in the province of Valencia.

Even with the five-time stellar Brazilian Olympic medalist, Robert Scheidt, De Souza thinks they can fight this first season with the best ships in the fleet. The tactic will help the team a lot, but they are aware that fighting for the pods this 2018 season will be very complicated for them.

In addition, De Souza's goal goes beyond winning evidence and reaching podiums; his real interest is to bring the Brazilian flag back to the best race circuit in the world with a crew mix of experience and young new talents of the South American candle. The four Olympic gold medals that treasure between Schiedt and Torbel Grael are more than the American country has in any other Olympic discipline, but this nation's bagage in the high-competition cruise race is still very much better.

30 / 01 / 2018: "Land Rover BAR" among the heavy weights of the 52 Super Series 2018

The British until Palma Vela in May will not be able to measure other teams of 52 Super Series in official competition

Land Rover Ben Ainslie Racing arrives at 52 Super Series through the big door, with the highest expectations already from the start. The British are shaping their season preparation program in which they expect to start by taking advantage of the nine new TP52 that arrive this year with their tuned sailboat after a season already in the water to the controls of the shipowner Tony Langley.

And this Langley and Ainslie alliance looks really good. In the beginning, the new structure will be dated from a ship designed by Marcelino Botín which was launched at the end of 2016 and which demonstrated its potential at the end of the season at the end of the last race of the season in Menorca tied in the first place of the general with the Azzurra. With a good ship already developed, rather its challenge to start the season with good foot is to tune the compenetration of a crew that will mix people from the Ainslie challenge with regatists who remain from Langley's' Gladiator 'project.

A first stick on the wheel has been the failed week of training they had planned in UK waters due to bad weather. However, Ainslie explains that his pre-season work will continue in the coming weeks in San Diego where the Langley team has a training base at the San Diego Yatch Club and where one of the three TP52 that the British businessman has in his particular fleet dwells.

The initial idea of the crew is that Ainslie will lead to the one that was its headline crew at the 35 American Cup in Bermuda with the rotation of regatists that will be mixed with the trusted men that Langley has been sailing with for many years like the Swain and Escourt trimmers. Joe Spooner will be grinder and Tom Wilson will be on the piano and runner. While Langley will take the Tactic Ainslie cane, the other Olympic gold medalist, Giles Scott, will be singing the strategy at the stern; Andy McLean will be the navigator and Matt Cornell will work at the bow; he will also be on the crew in an important role the three-time American Cup winner, Jono McBeth.

29 / 11 / 2017: Mallorca and Valencia in the 52 Super Series 2018 that promise to be successful

There may be ten teams in 2018 (Photo Nico Martínez)

The 52 Super Series painted very well in 2018. Nine new ships, at least three crews arriving from the American Cup, three new teams joining the race and two returning to the circuit will star in the most important monocasque races in the world.

The new season promises the best races in the history of the competition and with new protagonists that already add to the pléyade of stars that brings the event together. Names such as Sir Ben Ainslie, Robert Scheidt, Terry Hutchinson, Francesco Bruni, Ed Baird, Jordi Calafat, John Kostecki or Vasco Vascotto will be seen in waters of Croatia, Spain and Portugal.

Spain will have two dates in 2018 (ND Assembly with photo by Nico Martínez)

Before the best season in history, winter work will be frenzy, especially in the world's best composite yards where up to nine new sailboats will be built. The intention of all is to get ready to compete the week of May 22-27 in Sibenik (Croatia) and to be ready means to have trained and even competed, before showing up on the Dalmatian coast.

The confirmation this week of the new design of the 75-foot American Cup monocasco has decanted the teams for coming to the 52 SUPER SERIES. Thus, the Challenger of the Record, Luna Rossa, has just made an official announcement that it is in addition to the TP52 race with the construction of a new sailboat that will be patronized by Francesco Bruni, a good connoisseur of the series. The equipment that will surely be in competition in 2018:

Button
Alegre, (Andrés Soriano), Length Zero, Spain
Azzurra (Roemmers Family), King Marine, Spain
Luna Rossa (Patrizio Bertelli / skipper Max Sirena), Persico, Italy
Phoenix, (Hasso Plattner), Persico, Italy
Onda (Eduardo de Souza Ramos), King Marine, Spain.
Quantum Racing (Doug DeVos), Composite Builders (Michigan USA)
Sled, (Takashi Okura), Core Composites (New Zealand)

Vrolijk
Provides, (Ergin Imre), Persico, Italy
Platoon, (Harm Müller Spreer), Premier Composites (Dubai)