Three races, light wind, and a scoreline that is fast becoming a formality. Harm Müller-Spreer's German-flagged Platoon Aviation have stretched their lead in the race for the 2026 52 SUPER SERIES championship title to 20 points, with just one day of racing left at Valencia Sailing Week.
The regatta title itself is a tighter affair. Andrea Lacorte's Alkedo Cetilar hold a slender one-point margin over Pieter Heerema's No Way Back heading into the final day.
There was no shortage of theatre on the water. Platoon Aviation and their closest circuit rival, Takashi Okura's Sled, traded match-racing blows in the pre-start, and it got physical early. Sled clawed back two points in a bruising opening race, finishing 11th in the 16-boat fleet to Platoon's 13th.
After that, though, Platoon settled. A fifth and a fourth followed, against Sled's eighth and 11th. With the chance of two races on Saturday, the 2023 champions are sitting pretty.
Platoon Aviation's tactician Vasco Vascotto said, "Sled kind of fired some bullets from their gun and we resisted. It can still go either way tomorrow but I think that Harm and the guys on board Platoon Aviation did a fantastic job to stay calm and wait for our moments. At the first start something very unexpected happened, one boat kind of went for us instead of thinking of their own race, but the second and third races are good. And I am happy because we did a difficult job against some of the real legends of this sport. I am very proud of our guys."
Sled's Don Cowie wasn't despondent despite the deficit. "Yes, well we brought a bit of fireworks and action into today and it went well at times, we pulled back a couple of points on that first race, the next race we were right next to them at the top mark and they managed to squeeze around it. We had to dip a couple of boats they jumped away and that really was it. But you know we are 20 points behind so we want to get that score down and get back on the podium, which would get us back on the podium for four of this season's five events."
At the front of the regatta leaderboard, Alkedo Cetilar took the first race of the day, their third winning gun of the event. A 12th in the third race, a second behind No Way Back, has left them clinging to top spot ahead of the Dutch boat, which carries Terry Hutchinson as tactician and Kiwi Hamish Pepper as strategist this week.
Lacorte's crew arrived in Valencia with two goals for the season: a podium finish, having narrowly missed one last year, and a regatta win. Both remain within reach going into the final day.
Matteo de Luca, the bowman on Alkedo Cetilar, was smiling about it. "We gained a place today which is great but to go into the final day of the season with Terry Hutchinson and No Way Back one place behind you is pretty stressful but, hey, we are second owner driver, third for the season, leading the regattas so that could be a lot of podiums tomorrow!"
Hutchinson, for his part, pointed to a cleaner approach off the line. "We started very well today. We have a new strategist Hamish Pepper and with Michele Ivaldi our navigator they did a brilliant job. In fact it was a great job by the entire team. The difference today was started well, we started consistently and that made it easier. We won two races at the season warm up regatta but that is the first No Way Back race win. This fleet is hard, it is really, really hard, it is a really, really good fleet."
Tony Langley's Gladiator took the second race, No Way Back the third. Racing resumes with a 1330hrs warning signal for the final day, with the championship all but settled and the regatta title still there to be won.
