Valencia hosts the grand finale of the 52 SUPER SERIES with the 2026 title at stake

The 52 SUPER SERIES Valencia Sailing Week will serve as the thrilling grand finale of the 2026 season, bringing together the largest and most closely matched fleet in the history of the 52 SUPER SERIES. From October 5th to the 10th, 16 teams representing 11 nationalities will gather beneath the iconic Veles e Vents building at Marina de València for a week of top-level competition.

In its 15th consecutive season, the 52 SUPER SERIES has reached an extraordinary level of competitiveness. In recent years, the overall title has not been decided until the final race of the championship, and everything suggests that the 2026 edition will maintain the suspense throughout the ten races scheduled for the season finale: the 52 SUPER SERIES Valencia Sailing Week.

After winning the Royal Cup in Puerto Calero, Lanzarote, Platoon Aviation, owned and helmed by German sailor Harm Müller-Spreer, appears to be in outstanding form, sailing at its best level of the past two years. The 2023 champions arrive in Valencia with an 11-point lead at the top of the overall standings over Takashi Okura’s Sled, the world champions this season and winners of the first two regattas of the year.

Although the numbers may appear to favour Platoon, Sled knows a route to becoming champion that it has already followed in 2021. The team continues to sail well, and much of the gap separating it from the German team can be attributed to a costly technical failure suffered in the last regatta.

One of the factors that could have the greatest influence on the final result will be the size of the fleet in Valencia. With the addition of Katana, owned by American John Huhn, featuring a strong crew and a perfectly tuned boat, launched in 2018 and the boat with which Platoon won the 2023 season, a total of 16 teams from 11 countries will compete in the final event of the year.

Müller-Spreer is ambitious: “We feel good. I think we can win. That was the absolute goal when we started the season, and nothing has changed. It took us time to get this boat working really well, and now I feel we have the boat to do it and a team with the experience and motivation required. We sailed well in Lanzarote — apart from a few damaged sails at Marina Rubicón — so I think we have everything in place to perform at our best.”

Vasco Vascotto, the German team’s tactician, shares his owner’s optimism: “It’s a huge privilege to be in this position, leading at this stage of the season. If you had told me that at the beginning of the year, I would have happily signed for it. I think, overall, we have sailed well, and it will be a luxury to have a great battle with Sled in the final regatta.”

It will not be easy. Don Cowie, Sled’s project director and mainsail trimmer, says the team is ready to fight until the end: “It’s going to be a very close regatta. We’ve seen how much Platoon has improved their performance over the last two or three events. They’re very tough opponents, but we’ll go out there and give it everything until the final race and try to win the season. I think we have to stop giving away silly penalties, and we also suffered a breakdown that cost us nine points. We’re not sailing as well as we were at the beginning; we need to improve our starts and put together solid races.”

When the 52 SUPER SERIES visited in 2024, Valencia provided a wide variety of conditions, including days of strong and shifting land breeze that rewarded those able to seize their opportunities. At this stage of the season, however, the racecourse off Malvarrosa Beach could offer anything from light winds to excessively strong conditions, with every scenario in between. It is certainly not a course where the same strategy will work day after day. Competitors must be prepared for the unexpected.

The battle for second and third place adds even more excitement. Italy’s Alkedo Cetilar, owned by Andrea Lacorte and making its debut in 2025, occupies third place with an 11-point advantage over French team Paprec, winner of the first of the two events held in the Canary Islands and third overall last season. Sweden’s Trinity, meanwhile, is just one point behind Paprec and is targeting a podium finish in its first season on the circuit.

Alkedo Cetilar has prepared for the event with meticulous attention to detail, something that gives confidence to its project director and bowman, Matteo de Luca: “The latest forecast seems to point towards a week of light winds, and we have just received our new sails for these conditions, so we are happy with the long-term planning we did for the season. We are confident that we have the equipment and the tools we need to perform well and fight for the podium. We don’t have too much to correct or improve; we simply need to get everything working together. The racecourse is very familiar to all of us compared with the shifting conditions in Puerto Calero. We also believe the competition will be much fairer and less random.”

Loïck Peyron, the French offshore sailing legend and Paprec’s tactician, also arrives with positive feelings: “I think we are continuing to improve. We want to finish on the podium again, as we did last year, but there are many very good teams and it won’t be easy. We would like to have a little more wind. Everyone is eager to arrive and start racing.”

And from one legend to another, Ed Baird, Trinity’s tactician and an America’s Cup winner, says: “Valencia will depend on who finds the magic this week. All the leading teams have had their moments, Platoon is coming in very strong and Provezza has just reached the podium, so perhaps there will be some head-to-head battles that could benefit the rest of us. We’re in a good position, better than we expected and better than the goal we set ourselves at the beginning of the year, so we’re very excited. But it’s a little like golf: you make a birdie and think you can do it every time and that you should move on to the professional tour. In reality, it’s about achieving those moments more frequently and more consistently. Valencia is also very different in terms of wind patterns from when we competed there in the America’s Cup.”

The 52 SUPER SERIES Valencia Sailing Week comes at the end of several intense weeks of back-to-back top-level competition for many of the circuit’s leading sailors, who cannot afford to arrive without energy or lose concentration. The winner will be the team capable of producing its best performance in every race, every start, every mark rounding, every tack and every gybe. At this level, there is no room for unforced errors.

The 52 SUPER SERIES Valencia Sailing Week begins on Monday, October 5th, with the official non-scoring practice race. Racing will run from Tuesday, October 6th, through Saturday, October 10, with up to ten scoring races determining both the winner of the final event of the season and the overall 2026 52 SUPER SERIES champion.

The competition will be broadcast live on the official 52 SUPER SERIES website, 52superseries.com, and on the circuit’s YouTube channel, with commentary in English and Spanish.