The nine TP52s left this morning from the pontoons of the Monte Real Club de Yates de Bayona heading to the regatta area that will host this week the Bayona Sailing Week, the first scoring regatta for the 52 Super Series 2022. The official training day consisted of a menu of three short tests as a dress rehearsal for the fleet and the Regatta Committee led by the Spanish María Torrijo.
The conditions went from less to more and made it possible to comply with the planned program, with a northwest component wind that blew with intensities of 9 to 13 knots and no waves, enough to take the pulse of an area that had never before hosted a test of TP52.
The partial victories in this regatta with blank bullets corresponded to the German Platoon of Harm Müller-Spreer, the South African Phoenix of Hasso Platner and the Turkish Provezza of Ergin Imre.
“One of the most beautiful places I have ever sailed”
At the end of the training regatta, Phoenix tactician Tom Slingsby was impressed with the setting in which Bayonne Sailing Week will take place. “It’s my first time here, in Bayonne and Vigo, and it’s beautiful,” the Olympic and Copa America champion explained back to the MRCYB. “It is probably one of the most beautiful places I have ever sailed: A spectacular coastline, mountains, lots of greenery and islands, clear waters, beautiful beaches… I would love to have a day off and explore those beaches.”
The good feeling of Slingsby extends to the rest of the fleet. “Both on land and at sea, the comments are very good”, explains Víctor Mariño, the sailor from Vigo aboard the Platoon. “People are not expecting this, they are not used to coming to Spain and seeing a stage like this, so green. We have spent more hours training these days than in all of last season, and that is because they have a good time, they like it, because it is nice to sail in the Vigo estuary”.
After winning the second race of the day aboard the Phoenix, Tom Slingsby seems to have understood how the first Galician regatta course in the history of the 52 Super Series works: “It’s quite complicated, both the right and the left can work. You have to bet on one side, play with the roles and trust that it works, because if you stay in the middle you can have problems, “acknowledges the Australian.
Five days of competition
After the official training day, the Bayona Sailing Week competition program starts tomorrow, designed for a maximum of ten windward-leeward tasks until Saturday. The medium-term forecast indicates that it will be possible to sail every day, as Mariño explains: “The first two days of the week will be northwest, similar to today but without the early rain. Then comes quite a bit of heat, so the wind will drop and it will be more changeable. But the mouth of the Vigo estuary always has good conditions for sailing. I think it’s going to be a good week of racing”.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, the first departure of the day is scheduled from 12:30 p.m. The awards ceremony will be held on Saturday, the 28th, at the MRCYB.
