TP52 world title a win for NZ on and off the water

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Issue date

16 Nov 2021

Sled's win at the recent TP52 world championships in Palma was not only a win for a bunch of Kiwis sailors but also a triumph for the New Zealand marine industry.

Sled might be owned (and normally helmed) by Japanese businessman Takashi Okura and sail out of the New York Yacht Club but a quick scan through the team list shows a distinct New Zealand flavour with the likes of Murray Jones, Don Cowie, Robbie Naismith and Jeremy Lomas on board and this year they were joined by two-time Olympian and America's Cup winner Josh Junior. Former Olympic medallist and America's Cup helmsman Rod Davis was coach.

They won the world championships by one point over Quantum Racing and Platoon, with Phoenix just a point further back in fourth.

They also won the overall TP52 Super Series for 2021, again by a single point, becoming only the third team to win the circuit's top honours in nine years of racing and breaking the dominance of Quantum Racing and Azzurra who have won every year since the first series in 2012. Quantum Racing have also won six world titles.

"It’s a pretty big event to be won by a bunch of Kiwis," said Cowie, who doubles as mainsheet trimmer and team project manager. "To win the season is pretty cool and to knock out those dominant teams was a nice way to finish the year.

"The Super Series and TP52 class in general has been pretty close for a long time. It’s certainly the most competitive, I think, keelboat class in the world. As we saw through all three events, anyone in the top five or six could have won.

"[The key for us was] trying to always just get that extra point. We had a few races where we were quite deep and instead of trying to go for the gangbuster and go from sixth to first we would try to go from sixth to fourth or fifth because we knew every point was going to matter. The difficulty in such a tight fleet is being consistent but what you want to do is try to eliminate the really high scores."

It's an approach that clearly paid off, especially for a team that had never been able to reach the top step of the podium. They were third overall in 2015 and achieved a best placing of fourth at a world championships but started to find a winning formula towards the end of 2019 when they won six of nine races in Porto Cervo to win that event overall.

Cowie also pointed to the work done behind the scenes in New Zealand to find an extra click of speed. The boat was built in Warkworth by Core Builders Composites, the rig by Southern Spars and sails by North Sails New Zealand.

"The sail programme is run by a couple of us on board and the sails made here in Auckland," Cowie said. "That is awesome because we can sit down with the designers, who are both Kiwi designers, and design exactly what we want and build them how we want them built. We see that as quite a strong advantage.

"We were also able to sit with the designers when we designed the rig. That was another big advantage to sit with them and look at the computer screen at the same time."

Cowie will spend the next few months reviewing the 2021 season and plotting their 2022 campaign. Only three events were possible in 2021 because of Covid-19 but five events are scheduled for 2022 starting in May with Baiona in north-west Spain.