52 SUPER SERIES Saint Tropez Sailing Week – Provezza on top

After a day on which the Gulf of Saint-Tropez offered up a strengthening sea breeze and beautiful spring sunshine, Ergin Imre’s Turkish flagged Provezza team lead the 52 SUPER SERIES Saint Tropez Sailing Week by one single point ahead of Andy Soriano’s almost equally consistent Alegre. Defending champions Quantum Racing powered by American Magic are up to third on the general classification.

The second race was the windiest yet, the gusty, puffy breeze peaking at just under 20kts finally offering the 11 boat fleet some fast downwind sailing, the TP52s lighting up, ensuring there were useful gains to be made riding the gusts for longer.

The race course continues to offer a regular dividend on the right side of the track looking upwind. That is making the starts extremely tightly contested, often with a compact group fighting tooth and nail for the prime spot at the committee boat, right hand end of the line.

First race, Takash Okura’s 2021 champions Sled were actually shut out in the joust for the boat end and had to circle round swiftly. They may have lost vital seconds but they recovered well and led around the first mark ahead of Provezza.

Sled, with five times America’s Cup winner Murray Jones calling tactics, now this year supported by Italian Michele Ivaldi as strategist, passed Provezza on the second beat and took the win.

And Okura’s past world champions looked to have nailed the first leg of Race 6 too. But they came in too tight on the mark when they tacked inside the line-up of approaching starboard tack boats they were left stranded and starved of wind by the passing fleet. Dropping to an 11^th , their day of highs and lows is not unusual in a fleet which is so evenly matched now.