In St. Petersburg today, was held the seventh and final race of the championship in the Dragon class. The race was full of dramatic events.
© Elena Razina
According to the site http://russiandragon.ru half an hour before the start to the water area of the Neva Bay came a storm front with wind gusts up to 29 knots, hampering the installation distance. However, as soon as the gusts dropped to acceptable 17-20 knots, was launched starting procedure, and after 5 minutes the fleet went the distance.
Unfortunately, not without incident. RUS 34 Vasily Senatorov and RUS 48 Alexander Kulikov collided at the starting mark. While RUS 34 gained a lot of water, and the team was forced to stop the race. Went to the Bank and RUS 48. But that did not stop. Gusts of wind on the course – 24-26 knots and a sharp, short wave (especially noticeable slightly seaward) forced by the end of the first looked like to go back several boats, including the crew of the Portuguese Pedro Andrade (POR 84), RUS 55 Yury Kulikova, RUS 84 Sergei Bakharev and ENG 651 Oksana Rennie. Thus, at a distance were only 18 teams.
The finish line first crossed the team of Anatoly Loginov (RUS 27). She became the outright winner of the championship, winning five races out of seven. He came to the first top mark with 35 RUS Victor Fogelson and RUS 76 Dmitry Samokhin, she was able to complete the course to get around opponents and never lost his advantage, only increasing the gap at each stage. Two other teams also kept his position throughout the race. Second came the team of Dmitry Samokhin (RUS76), in third place Victor Fogelson (RUS 35). In the fourth place, the team of Sergei Borodinov (RUS 81), which also held this position throughout the race. And considering the gathering of the Portuguese team, then this is the place the team and in the overall standings.
Anatoly Loginov, winner of the championship of Russia:
The last race was the confirmation of the thesis that the strongest wins?
– Our task was to win in the last race. Rivals wasn’t much: Basil Senators came, and Dmitry Samokhin was far enough away – just had to get there. The championship we tried to forget about the numbers and every race to hold the race. But nevertheless, psychologically it was a little easier than if we faced the need in whatever was to win. But I must say thank you to Dima that the regatta was interesting.
– Did the win the championship for you some kind of compensation for the loss of Marblehead Trophy?
– I think that if the race continued to infinity, then each day someone would be in front, someone behind. In the Cup cut-off occurred at the level of the Championships on it.
Dmitry Samokhin, the silver medalist of the championship of Russia:
– Third place before you got to second overall, is it good?
– Of course, good. And third – not bad, but the second is better!
– How do you evaluate the final race and the championship in General?
Today’s race was very interesting because the championship was on the weak wind and the last race all of a sudden strong. The smaller was a story about tactics, more about control of the boat, its settings. I think that the results are fair.
Yesterday’s race has made adjustments in the fight for first place. There were those who won a lot, and those who have lost a lot. We were among those who lost. And today we had a hard fight for the first place. Almost unreal. So I tried to do the maximum that I can. The result climbed to second place.
If we talk about the championship in General, it can be called interesting. It is very good that raced almost every day but one, in St. Petersburg in July could be worse. Lot of participants, all on the go. We liked it. Looking forward to the next championship. As for plans for this season, we have a regatta in Cannes, then might regatta on lake Garda. We like there to race, there’s always the wind. Then – San Remo, the 90th anniversary of the “Dragon.” And at the end of the season as all the top crews in the “Dragon” – regatta at Palma. Now tested the new format, when the regatta first grade United in the European Cup, and the palm will stage the final of this Cup. We are on the tender results, get into the twenty of the strongest that were supposed to compete. So there just going, hope Alberese in the finals and there will perform adequately.
Vasily Senatorov, bronze medalist of the championship of Russia:
– Today we have gone the distance. At the start we piled uncontrollable at that moment the boat, we went sailing on the water and gained a lot of water had to drain it, while the rest started. Sense to continue the race was already gone.
Actually, I think that in such a strong and squally wind to launch should not have. Racing fleet is heterogeneous, there are a lot of classic boats, boats with an old crew – it is also necessary to take into account. The race should be for all, not just for the 3-4 leading teams that are able to cope in such difficult weather conditions. Look what happened in the end: eight yachts for various reasons dropped out of the race – a third of the fleet! I believe that the race had to give yesterday. But this forecast, as it is today – a sharp change in wind direction often suggests that there is some natural conflict. It actually arrived. But even in this situation you could wait for weakening wind – more time was enough.
As for the results of the championship, I note that the winner Anatoliy Loginov – a great racer, as well as the second-ranked Dmitry Samokhin. My third place, I am satisfied, although I note that silver and bronze awards we have won, and we certainly wanted to fight for the first place. But even if it wasn’t for the incident at the start, we would have such weather conditions were hard today, because it is not the wind, it was too much. In General, I think the championship of Russia has passed successfully. For the first time in many years we witnessed such a massive participation of 27 boats arrived at the start, came foreign teams. It was all good!
The full results of the championship of Russia –
http://dragonopen.russiandragon.ru/docs/Results-RusDragonOpen2019-28072019.pdf
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What do you think?