On Friday,November 16, on the second day of the final regatta of the season in RC44 class, which is now in the Portuguese Cascais – RC44 Cascais Cup 2018, the Russian Team Nika’s Vladimir Prosikhin headed the overall standings.
© Elena Tekina
Nika won the first race of the day and finished 4th, 2nd and 8th in the other three. In second place with 4 points difference is one of the contenders for victory in the season – British Team Aqua (5-6-4-5). Even on point and in third place the other soiskatelei title of the season – the Slovenian Ceeref (3-3-8-2).
Despite very challenging weather — a weak unstable Southeast wind 6-12 knots and six-foot ocean swell – the Race Committee managed to hold 4 races, one more than usual to compensate for the shortened first day.
In the first race Nika was in the lead the whole distance, successfully starting in the center of the line and went left to the shore on the first tacking. The two main contenders for the title-2018 – Monegasque Charisma Nico Punch and the Slovenian Ceeref, Igor La the race followed the boat Vladimir Prosikhin on his heels and finished second and third respectively.
In the second race Nika was the third, but right at the finish of it for a second ahead of Ceeref, and eventually the team got 4th place.
In the third race Mr Prosikhin was the first on the first loop, but on the second tacking guessed wrong with the party and sign the Portuguese forward missed the team at this regatta Mirpuri Foundation Paolo Mirpuri.
Mirpuri got a great sunset the wind, which carried him from fifth to first place at the second top mark; this position, the team managed to defend. Paolo has virtually no experience of walking in RC44 class, so so bright and unexpected victory on the second day of the regatta caused incredible joy on Board!
In the fourth race Nika was on the false start with Aleph and Charisma. Acting under the Monegasque flag boat very quickly fulfilled, and went right into clean wind, and it got a good gain, which allowed her first to get on the first sign. She then constantly increased his lead, finishing casings to 20 ahead of the entire fleet. Aleph managed to get to the 4-th place, and the boat Vladimir Prosikhin – unlike the first day – to get out from last place failed. A few punctures with a selection of the best sides left the team at the end of the fleet. According to Vladimir, before the start he missed the Aleph, which is their “bit”, it would have to operate, but not fast enough to react, time has not turned away and eventually went far over the line. “We could use some points to play, and maybe all if it was just going to, but I was not able to gather one mistake messed up”.
The Russian team Bronenosec held a rough day, posted 6th, 5th, 3rd and 7th finishes. In the third race, the team of Kirill Frolov on the first sign came in the third, then at the gate was able to overtake his teammate and moved into first place early in the second looked like, but then they missed the best party, went left and I ended up in third place.
According to the helmsman, on the second day he already felt much more confident, but the weather has created new challenges in the form of unstable wind combined with a very high coasting. This further complicated the management of the boat and did not improve the situation of the team in the final table, where Bronenosec came down from 6th place to 7th.
After a terrible first day of Monaco’s Charisma played a good series 2-2-6-1 and last place took off immediately for 4. In the result the season, the team separates from the head of the Nika Team standings just two points, so that after Ceeref she’s the third contender for the title, 4th and 5th teams in the queue – Team Aqua Chris Bake and Artemis Racing of Thorbjorn the tornkvist.
It is characteristic that all five teams capable of winning the season, now make up the top five on the equator regatta, so the final two days of racing will be held in the most severe fight. The weather, however, can make their adjustments. On Saturday after lunch in the Bay of Cascais promise of storm wind 30+ knots and 3 meter waves, so the first start again scheduled an hour earlier, at 11.00 local time (+3 GMT).
To follow the races in real time on the official website of the regatta: www.rc44.com.
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