Ergin Imre's Turkish campaign with Provezza has been a model of steady, composed sailing at Puerto Portals. Four races into the regatta and the team has yet to finish outside the top four, a run of form that has Cole Parada and Santi Lange's outfit sitting six points clear of Andrea Lacorte's Alkedo heading into Thursday.
Wednesday delivered the kind of day the Bay of Palma is famous for: brilliant sunshine, 16 knots in the opening race, and thermal breezes that separated the tactically sharp from the rest. Provezza sailed with quiet discipline throughout, resisting the temptation of the course's flanks and picking off the wind shifts cleanly. Parada was in good spirits afterwards. "Everything is falling into place at just the right time," he said. "Consistency is always the most important thing in the 52 SUPER SERIES, and that's never going to change. Before, a fifth place was a keeper; now with 14 boats racing even a seventh or eighth is a good result."
Alkedo backed up two ninth places from Tuesday with a double race win on Wednesday. Cameron Appleton's crew drilled their starts, particularly from the pin end, and their beat-by-beat boat handling was sharp enough to hold what they gained. "Sometimes you have to remember what you're doing is quite good," Appleton reflected. "We kept prioritising the starts and that was kind of the key. Both times we got off the pin end well and were able to be the last man into the left." The improvement has not come from nowhere. Work over the winter brought Alkedo a new keel carrying more weight in the bulb, a heavier crew, and a new headstay, giving the team a genuine platform to build on.
Trinity's regatta has swung from promise to frustration in the space of a day. Joakim Sundberg's new Swedish team announced themselves with a Race 2 victory on the opening day, sitting third overall, but Wednesday unravelled quickly. A main halyard problem before the first race forced them to sit out entirely, and tactical errors through the second race dropped the team to ninth in the overall standings. Ed Baird was candid about the damage. "We had self-inflicted issues today. We made a mistake with our main halyard and had to get it fixed. In the second race we were going round in pretty good shape but we also had a little problem and had to do a manual drop at the bottom that put us on the less favoured side and then there was a big shift up the second beat."
Takashi Okura's Sled, the 2021 champions, occupy third overall but are level on 20 points with Alkedo. A door slam from Paprec at the top of the second beat in the first race cost them a likely top-three finish.
Thunder and rain are forecast for Thursday, with racing scheduled to start at midday.
