King Marine: the Valencian boatyard building and maintaining the cutting-edge yachts of the 52 SUPER SERIES

Six of the TP52s entered in the 2026 52 SUPER SERIES —the most competitive monohull circuit in the world— came out of the ovens at King Marine, the Valencian boatyard that has spent twenty years building winning boats. The circuit holds its final 2026 event from October 5 to 10 in Valencia, a short distance from the facility where those hulls were laminated.

(All Photos by: Nico Martínez / 52 SuperSeries)

Last August 29, with a fifteen-knot trade wind sweeping the south of Lanzarote and the current pushing the fleet over the line, the German Platoon Aviation won convincingly in the fourth event of the 2026 season of the world's premier monohull circuit, the 52 SUPER SERIES, taking over the lead of the circuit from Sled. Since leaving King Marine's yard in 2024, designed by Marcelino Botín, Platoon has continued fine-tuning its setup, becoming a beast capable of dominating the fleet in wind conditions that push this type of boat to its limits

In under a month, from October 5 to 10, the Marina de Valencia will host the circuit's final and decisive event, with the waters off the Turia capital once again welcoming the world's best monohulls. And most of them share something with Platoon: they came out of an industrial estate in Alginet, half an hour from Valencia. Of the thirteen TP52s that competed in Lanzarote, five were built by King Marine. Add the Italian Vudu, which debuted on the circuit this year at the Porto Cervo World Championship and has just won the Copa del Rey in 2026, and six of the 2026 fleet's boats were born at the same yard. No other builder in the world has such a presence on the grid.

What's more, all these yachts were not only built in Alginet — the technical base where they carry out all their improvement and optimization work is also King Marine's facility at the Marina de Valencia. In 2019 the yard scaled up by acquiring the former base of Emirates Team New Zealand for the 32nd America's Cup, gaining full dock operations: a 50-tonne travel lift, 2,000 square meters of hardstand, and haul-out and refit capacity up to maxi-yacht lengths.

Taking advantage of these excellent facilities, once christened, the yachts return periodically to the Valencia base for maintenance, meaning a steady stream of the world's top professionals visiting Valencia to fine-tune and prepare their boats.

Valencia remains a key strategic hub in top-level sailing thanks to these first-class facilities at King Marine, which also makes it easier for the world's best regattas to keep Valencia as a key fixture on their calendars. In fact, the Marina de Valencia has just hosted the only Spanish leg of the SailGP circuit, just a few meters from the Valencian boatyard's facilities in the marina.

Pablo Santarsiero, CEO of King Marine, highlights the top-tier nautical hub that has grown up in Valencia around the development of the base. “All year round we host the fine-tuning and optimization work for all these cutting-edge yachts. We now have not only the ideal facilities for this process, but also the professionals with the know-how needed to give every team the best possible service. The same goes for events — we find they feel more comfortable coming to Valencia because they know facilities like ours are close at hand.”

The Six from Alginet

The list reads like a map of the class. Alegre, owned by Britain's Andy Soriano, and the aforementioned Platoon Aviation, owned by Germany's Harm Müller-Spreer, are two 2024 Botin Partners designs built from the same mould: when Müller-Spreer won the circuit title in 2023, he exercised the option to build a sister hull to Soriano's boat, at the same yard. Trinity, the Swedish project belonging to Joakim Sundberg and launched this season, came out of the same mould and the same workshop in 2026, and has already won at least one race in every event of its debut year.

Provezza, owned by Turkey's Ergin Imre, is a 2024 Judel/Vrolijk design, also built in Alginet — proof that the yard works equally with both design studios that dominate the class.

Then there are the two boats with history. Alkedo Cetilar, owned by Italy's Andrea Lacorte, is the 2018 Botin design launched as Azzurra, which won the 52 SUPER SERIES title in 2019 before passing into American hands as Interlodge. Vudu, owned by brothers Mauro and Dario Gestri, is the 2015 Azzurra —circuit champion that year and the next— which emigrated to Australia as Hooligan and Patrice before returning to the Mediterranean under an Italian flag.

Two Alginet-built hulls that won the class world championship are still, a decade on, sailing at the front of the fleet. In a category where boats are typically replaced every three or four years and sold on down the line, that longevity is a testament to the quality of the lamination.

The heart of the build process remains the Alginet plant: 3,000 square meters, two large-format ovens —the bigger one measuring 32 × 9 × 6 meters, capable of curing a full hull and deck under controlled temperature and vacuum—, a 2.7 × 8-meter autoclave for appendages and rudders, a ten-meter CNC milling machine for moulds and components, and quality control by thermography and ultrasound testing on all major structural elements. The yard can point to a figure rarely seen in this industry: every boat delivered on schedule and within its structural weight target. In grand-prix sailing, where a program is planned around a fixed launch date and a single misplaced kilogram costs points, those two words —schedule and weight— mean more than any slogan.

Twenty years, fourteen TP52s and one obsession

King Marine was founded in Alginet in 2005, backed by an Argentine business group with more than three decades of industrial experience, to meet an international demand that no one in Spain was serving at the time: racing yachts built entirely in top-grade carbon composite. The early years were a period of technical acceleration —TP52s for the fledgling circuit, offshore boats under IRC— leading into the multihull structures of America's Cup programs, including Artemis Racing, and the construction of a Volvo 70 for the round-the-world race, Telefónica.

The total number of TP52s to come out of Alginet stands at fourteen. Alongside the six competing today are names that defined an era on the circuit and in Spanish and international sailing: Bribón, Matador, Azurra, Phoenix, Bronenosec, Beau Geste —launched as Onda— and Interlodge.

Today the company operates three interconnected areas —boatbuilding, services for racing yachts, and innovation— and applies twenty years of composite-materials engineering to sectors far removed from the sea, such as agriculture, mobility, defense, and aerospace.

Four Spanish events in a successful 2026

The circuit, founded in Barcelona in 2012 with five boats, brings together sixteen teams from eleven countries this season, with a roster of sailors that includes Olympic medalists, America's Cup champions, and round-the-world racers. Four of its five 2026 events are held in Spain. With the events in Puerto Portals, Porto Cervo, Marina Rubicón, and Puerto Calero now behind it, only the decisive Valencia event remains, where these spectacular boats come home to fight for the season.