Ergin Imré’s Provezza team won their second title in a row today in Tuscany when they overturned nine points deficit over two final races to clinch the 52 SUPER SERIES Scarlino Sailing Week regatta victory, adding to their success in Saint Tropez, France just three weeks ago.
Led by helm John Cutler, tactician Hamish Pepper, navigator Nacho Postigo and strategist Cole Parada it was the same set of attributes which worked for them in Saint Tropez which made the difference on the Gulf of Follonica. They made good starts, stayed out of trouble and let their good boatspeed work for them.
But maybe most of all they showed the value of a really buoyant, strong team spirit when they bounced back from a 10th in the second race of Friday to go out and win the first race today which they followed up with a fourth to eclipse the 2022 circuit champions Quantum Racing powered by American Magic by a single point.
“Yesterday we won the first race and then after that we had a shocker, a 10th. And we are all upset until someone said ‘guys, relax, we had a bad race, we need two good races and we can win overall. It is only about doing two good races. And that is what we did today. We were relaxed, we were not thinking about winning or anything we just focused on making them good races, and made sure we were not going to be giving away points. So we had a very good start on the first race and we were lucky Quantum were not going quick on the first beat. So that was one good race. Still we said forget about the points, lets make a good race and we just did that but all the pieces fell into place for us.”
Enthused Nacho Postigo, Provezza’s Spanish navigator.
And asked about winning two in a row he responded,
“It is very hard to understand, very hard, in this fleet it is amazing!”
While Provezza finished strong with a 1,4 Quantum Racing powered by American Magic could not capitalise on their early fourth place in Race 9 and after an incident with Alegre dropped to a ninth which still left them with a one point margin over Provezza into the last race showdown. But Provezza started better and preserved their clear air through an exciting finale while the American flagged team could only finish with a sixth.
Thailand’s Whitcraft family on Vayu started the day second and had a tough final day, not least by being over the start line in the last race but they finish third, on the podium for the first time, a remarkable result considering they started out with the 52 SUPER SERIES only two years ago.
Co-owner Kevin Whitcraft said:
“We are super delighted that we’re on the podium for the first time in the 52 SUPER SERIES. That’s probably something we never expected, super happy with the results. It’s been a couple of hard years, a lot of training, a lot of thinking about how we are gonna do the sails setup. It is the same team that we’ve been sailing for probably half of last year and both regattas this year, and it definitely helps: it is a team sport. We have six family members onboard, but as we say, everyone is part of the family. We’ve been sailing together with people like Nick Rogers, Gabriele, Pom Green for eight or nine years with TP52 in Thailand. There are a couple of Thai youngsters onboard as well. It’s all a big family.”
And Harry Melges of Quantum concluded,
“ We are a little disappointed that we couldn’t make it happen in the last race, but overall we are all really happy with the progress we’ve made. We were a lot better with the starts at this event, and looking forward to the next event, we are in the hunt. Still a lot to do with the starting, probably coming into the top mark in a tough situation we are not super confident with yet, we are so new, or the young guys are new to the program are.”
52 SUPER SERIES Scarlino Sailing Week Final Standings
1- PROVEZZA (TUR), Ergin Imre, 6+2+6+2+4+6+1+10+1+4 = 42
2- QUANTUM RACING POWERED BY AMERICAN MAGIC (USA), Doug DeVos, 5+1+3+10+1+1+5+2+9+6 = 43
3- VAYU (THA), Whitcraft Family, 3+6+7+1+2+3+4+4+10+8 = 48
4- PLATOON (GER), Harm Müller-Spreer, 7+4+8+7+7+2+8+1+6+1 = 51
5- SLED (USA), Takashi Okura, 1+5+1+4+5+8+7+11+7+3 = 52
6- INTERLODGE (USA), Austin and Gwen Fragomen, 8+8+9+6+3+4+2+7+2+5 = 54
7- ALEGRE (GBR), Andy Soriano, 10+7+4+3+8+5+10(+2)+3+5+7 = 64
8- GLADIATOR (GBR), Tony Langley, 9+9+2+5(+1)+9+9+11+6+3+2 = 66
9- PHOENIX (RSA), Hasso and Tina Plattner, 4+3+11+9+6+7+3+9+8+11 = 71
10- PAPREC (FRA), Jean Luc Petithuguenin, 2+10+10+11+10+10+6+8+4+10 = 81
11- ALPHA+ (HKG), Shawn and Tina Kang, 11+11+5+8+11+11+9+5+11+9 = 91
52 SUPER SERIES 2023 Provisional Standings after Scarlino
1- PROVEZZA (TUR), Ergin Imre, 34+42 = 76
2- QUANTUM RACING POWERED BY AMERICAN MAGIC (USA), Doug DeVos, 40+43 = 83
3- PLATOON (GER), Harm Müller-Spreer, 45+51 = 96
4- SLED (USA), Takashi Okura, 45+52 = 97
5- INTERLODGE (USA), Austin and Gwen Fragomen, 45+54 = 99
6- VAYU (THA), Whitcraft Family, 58+48 = 106
7- GLADIATOR (GBR), Tony Langley, 40+66 = 106
8- ALEGRE (GBR), Andy Soriano, 43+64 = 107
9- PHOENIX (RSA), Hasso and Tina Plattner, 57+71 = 128
10- PAPREC (FRA), Jean Luc Petithuguenin, 56+81 = 137
11- ALPHA+ (HKG), Shawn and Tina Kang, 65+91 = 156
