Winners – Golden Wheels

May 24, 20197min read

April 18, 2019

Winners – Golden Wheels
Elena Otekina talks about the final day of the 44Cup Porto Montenegro regatta in Montenegro.

Winners - Golden Wheels

The Slovenian team Ceeref Igor La, who considers Montenegro to be her second home, became the honored winner of the regatta – the first in the new season of racing in the class of RC44. The winner of the two champion titles of the 2016 and 2017 seasons was ahead from the first to the last day, having received as a result the distinguishing sign of the class leader – Golden Steering Wheels.

The second place, 7 points behind Ceeref, showed the best result among the three Russian crews, took three-time world champion Team Nika Vladimir Prosykhina, who is playing this season with a new star tactician – the Olympic champion and Oracle tactician at the America's Cup, Tom Slingsby. Following the victory gained the day before in the only race of the day, the team took consistently high places in all three races in the finals (3-3-2).
The third place is taken by the British Team Aqua, Chris Bake, in the fourth place – the Pentaula Petroleum of John Bassadone.

On the fifth line of the overall standings – a newcomer class, Ekaterinburg Tavatuy Sailing Team Pavel Kuznetsov with Yevgeny Neugodnikov as a tactic. The team on the final day showed the 7th, 4th and 5th finishes, which allowed it to keep a place in the top 5.

Bronenosec Sailing Team, representing the St. Petersburg Yacht Club, spent its best racing day: the crew did a good job with speed and efficiently spent all three starts. Having taken the 5th and 6th places in the first and third races and winning the second, moreover, on the same already darned genaker, which prevented victory on the second day of the regatta, Bronenosec climbed to the 6th place in overall.

Having promised to use the last day to the maximum on the eve, the Racing Committee, despite the unstable wind, completely fulfilled its promise – extended the time limit to 17.00, held two races on the southerly, and one – on the west light wind, and even swung in the fourth race, but all – so tired of fighting with the vagaries of the weather and half past five completed the regatta.

In the first race, the team Tavatuy, after squeezing out the Monegasque Charisma to a false start, fought for pin with Team Aqua, but still lost her start and finished the race in 7th place. Nika, after a good start in the center of the line, went through the entire third race. Bronenosec from the 6th place on the first mark went up to the 5th at the finish.

In the second race, Bronenosec chose the advantageous left side after the start and came out on the second position in the top sign, followed by Tavatuy in third place, while Nika was bending around the 5th. On the second rounding, having successfully completed the second tacking, Bronenosec took the first place, leaving Ceeref behind, Nika became the third and defended her position right up to the finish. Tavatuy finished in 4th place.

In the third race, Nika, at the end of the first tack, was able to take advantage of the left gust, and from the second half of the fleet pulled out the first round of the second, and then managed to protect this place until the end of the race. Tavatuy walked 4th, then went to 3rd place, but missed one boat to the finish line. Bronenosec went all the way to 6th place.

According to the owner and helper of Team Nika, Vladimir Prosikhin, he was very pleased with the start of the new season with a renewed boat and crew:

"We are satisfied. This is probably the maximum result we expected. Well, you always want to win, but it would be a miracle if we won here, because, firstly, this is a new team, secondly, this is a new rebuilt boat, which we, of course, set up a little at the training camp in Portorož, but when it blew badly here, it turned out that these settings did not work in a strong wind, and we lost the second day. And then we went on old sails, our grotto for two years, our staysail is also not new, and this resulted in the fact that it was even difficult to keep the line with the boats from the start. Therefore, the tactic was all the time a much more difficult task than if they could “cut” high and fast. But, of course, he first of all did an amazing job and found how to bring us to a very good result almost every time. There were few mistakes from the team, we went quite well and, of course, there was a little luck, especially in the last race, when only one short left call came, but this was enough to go to the first upper mark by the second. We confidently took second place, because the opponents did not perform so strongly in the new course, kept their advantage, and it was not easy, because they also received very good steps down, but we found the trajectory and waited for the calls, which allowed us to finish second. ” .

Tom Slingsby added: “This regatta was as good as we managed to climb today from 4th to 2nd place. Ceeref was really the best, it was a solid team, and they managed to get the wind here, but we are happy to climb the table, it was a long journey two days long, and we were very good at chasing. ”

The two-time world champion in the class Melges 32 Ekaterinburg team "Tavatuy" was also very pleased with her first regatta of the season in the new class. Tactician Yevgeny Neugodnikov noted in particular that he had succeeded in implementing the plan scheduled for the regatta – to come in the middle of the fleet:

"The boy said the boy did." As he said, it just happened: they came in the middle of the fleet. I liked how we were chasing, the fleet, of course, cool! Last year, when we tried Sweden for the first time, it was more difficult for us, but now we have already practiced, we were in the center of events all the time, were bending around more or less well, and the conditions were interesting. The speed here did not play a key role: it was necessary to look more downwind, and in this regard we did quite well. We'll see when there will be speed races – there may be a different result, but wait and see. ”

The owner and steering team Pavel Kuznetsov had the best impressions of the regatta and the new class. “I am most pleased with the boat. This is probably one of the best sports boats I have ever raced on. The class itself is very interesting, the people are friendly – and in general the atmosphere of a holiday of some kind. We set ourselves the task of being in this regatta in the middle of the fleet, somewhere we were lucky, somewhere we failed, but in general we achieved our task. Now we will set the bar higher: unfortunately, we have not won a single race so far, we still have problems, we don’t know how to go well on the top sign in the crowd, we usually lose there. In general, a lot of things are still missing, but we are trying. The crew and I are happy with how the whole regatta went. A beautiful place, although the wind was problematic in some places, but in general everything is fine. ”

The owner and steering team of Bronenosec, Cyril Frolov, commented on the regatta:

“A funny place, very unstable weather, everything changes. The first days were without training, in general, the wind was not in the rain, so they did not finish what they wanted. And so – it was very interesting, elegant conditions, in terms of infrastructure …

But they are not satisfied, of course, with the result, I wanted to be taller, we didn’t tune in to the end, it was obvious on the second day. But it's great that the season has begun, we are looking forward to the second stage. ”

Deciding in a special way to celebrate the first regatta 44Cup in its history, the Port of Montenegro, under a curtain, arranged an entertaining navigation Pro-Am race around the Bay of Kotor. The plan was that the fleet with the guests on board would pass through the most beautiful places of the bay and the adjacent islands, and all participants would be able to admire with all their might the extraordinarily picturesque coastline.

The teams started beautifully in the gulfwind under the genakers, Nika soon went ahead, at the helm of which tactician Tom Slingsby and tank Jeremy Lomos took the lead. Vladimir Prosikhin, meanwhile, decided to try the boom-squat position, but after half an hour the race had to be stopped due to heavy rain and a complete lack of wind. Perfectly wet athletes and guests were hastily evacuated to the hospitable Regent Hotel.

Despite the difficult weather, the race in a completely new area for the water area was very popular, as well as the amazing hospitality of the host country – Porto Montenegro. The participants were pleasantly surprised that somehow they managed to spend as many as 9 races, and strong rivals, a well-organized marina, a streamlined racing process, the beauty of the surrounding nature and an interesting wind rose made the competition truly fascinating.

As Admiral of the Montenegro Yacht Club, James Waits, said: “It was a fantastic event. It was great to see in the race top powerful RC44 yachts. The competition was very tense, and it was very interesting to watch. This is obviously the highest level of sailing competitions that we saw here in Porto Montenegro. We would like 44Cup to come back here. ”

The next regatta of the current season – Adris 44Cup – will be held in late May – early June in the Croatian town of Rovinj.

# rc44 # rc44class # 44cup # 44cupportomontenegro

124 April 18, 2019 # 8937

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