Thursday, October 3, in the sailing Mecca of Europe — Portuguese Cascais — started 4th, the penultimate regatta of the current season’s 44Cup. Elena Tekina reports from the scene:
© Elena Tekina
Among the 9 teams of the RC44 class from 6 countries, and Russia are three is Tavatuy Pavel Kuznetsov Evgeny Neugodnikov as tactics, Bronenosec Kirill Frolov with the new Zealand tactician Cameron and The Team Nika’s Vladimir Prosikhin with just winning the season SailGP Australian tactician volume Slingsby.
In the first three regattas of the season Nika is in second place with equal points with the winner of the “Golden helm” the leader of the RC44 fleet — British Team Aqua. The other two Russian teams while completing the table overall.
The first day of racing in Cascais Russian team began modestly. After three races, the best result the Team Nika – 4th place with the 4th, 5th and 6th finishes. Two more points and 5th place in Yekaterinburg “Tautua” (5-7-5), while “Battleship” took the 7th place in overall (8-3-8).
The winner of the day was the champion of last year’s season — Monegasque Charisma Nico Punch with the winner of the America’s Cup and Volvo Ocean Race by John Kostecki as a tactic. The team showed a surprising stability, despite the difficult weather conditions, two second and one first coming.
The second place of the day, current world champion British Team Aqua (3-2-1), third in the French Aleph (1-6-4).
Waves from flying over the Azores hurricane Lorenzo came to Cascais, and the height of runup exceeded two meters, while the typical North-West wind during the day waned from 15 to 7 knots and was very unstable.
First, the judge had delayed the race by nearly half an hour, and then repeatedly moved the distance. High long waves added to the instability. “Surfacing” from the valleys and climbing to the crest, helm met is not the wind, which was downstairs and had to show the wonders of skill, returning to their yachts on the course.
Russian Team Nika all day lacked speed, especially on the first tacking. At the first sign of the yacht Vladimir Prosikhin constantly ulybalas at the end of the fleet. Then her finest tactics was able to find a good position, and the steering will cope with the wave, and eventually crew to the finish line to win back several seats.
According to Vladimir, he had a hard good abrasivity wave. “Somehow we have turned out worse than the other, we came up with a very bad passed the first traverse began, and it is purely on speed. In principle, it’s all about geek-Shkotovo, steering and tuning of the boat, and in this we were losing, and tactics played then an average of three points in the race.”
Team tactics That Slingsby was unhappy with the launch and positioning of the boat. “Not our finest day, we spent the whole day in the middle of the fleet. Could not well reach the first sign, we need to work on the first traverse began, then the result will be better.”
The helmsman and the owner of the team Tavatuy Pavel Kuznetsov raced in Cascais and were delighted from the heat, wind and long waves in the ocean. Although his team in the first two races didn’t calculate the time before the start, but in the first race Tavatuy could still finish 5th. In the third race of the Ekaterinburg yacht went over lalain and the first sign was the 4th, and finished again in 5th.
Representing the Yacht club of Saint-Petersburg “Battleship” in the first race after a good start went ahead, but then she married lalain and the sign was at the end of the fleet, finishing 8th. the Second race the team started the second, but missed a gate in front of Aqua. In the third race at the start of the “Battleship” couldn’t find the place and started literally in the third tier; the result was again 8-th place.
According to Kirill Frolov, he was very disturbed by the lack of training (Cyril was able to fly to Cascais just before the start of the Cup, missed training days), and in such a competitive fleet and such difficult waters it can not affect.
Today the forecast is for strengthening winds and even higher waves. To follow the races on the site www.44Cup.org
Full results –
https://44cup.org/results
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