The 2017 Rolex TP52 Worlds were won by Harm Müller-Spreer’s Platoon from Germany. In some respects, they made it look easy, never seeming to put a foot wrong and winning by a 7-point margin from Quantum Racing.
This is not even half the story. Müller-Spreer’s reaction to the victory pointed to the effort it had taken to finish top of the ten-boat fleet: “It means a lot. This regatta is so hard to win. I’ve been sailing for more than forty years but this is a different level.”
Rolex TP52 Worlds gallery
The TP52 in Europe has come a very long way since it was designed to a box rule to produce a series of evenly matched lightweight high performance flying machine for the Transpac Race from Los Angeles to Hawaii.
In 2005 a group of renowned owners chose to build TP52’s to develop a new high performance class because they were no longer content to race on handicap.
It has become the de-facto top monohull inshore race class in the world appealing to the very top level professional sailors, discerning owners and teams. The all carbon fibre boats with powerful sail areas and deep slender keels remain very close in performance.
They are light, have a high power to weight ratio and most of all offer exceptional fun for the crews who enjoy the physical and mental challenge of the 52’s.
Downwind in stronger breezes they will regularly surf at well over 20kts.
The tight controls imposed by the design rules ‘box’ allow sufficient freedom for the different designers to express their ideas, yet the fleet has remained very closely matched.
Each year has seen subtle new ideas generated for each new design, ensuring that there is just enough incentive to keep building new boats. Over 60 have been built. And the purity of racing is in real time, first past the line wins is still at the heart of the new 52 SUPER SERIES.