ARTTUBE Wins Sochi J/70 Sailing League Finale!

LORD OF THE SAIL- ASIA Crowned Russian National League Champions!
(Sochi, Russia)- After sailing six events all season, it can be said the twenty-four teams in the Russian J/70 Sailing League were easily the most-traveled J/70 crews in the world; having to crisscross the vast expanse of Russia, from as far east as Sochi, the resort on the Black Sea that hosted the Winter Olympics, to the far west to St. Petersburg, on the eastern end of the Baltic Sea!  The logistics sound intimidating, but the Russian Sailing Federation worked hard to include sailing teams from every part of Russia to participate in the summer-long series over a period of nearly six months.

The season started and ended in Sochi.  So, at the start of the decisive regatta season these were the twenty-four teams: LORD OF THE SAIL- ASIA (skipper Sergei Musikhin); LORD OF THE SAIL- EUROPE (Vyacheslav Ermolenko); KONAKOVO RIVER CLUB (Mark Kagansky); NAVIGATOR Sailing Team (Igor Rytov), ROCK’N’ROLLA Sailing Team (Alisa Kirilyuk); PIROGOVO TEAM (Yuri Morozov); ARTTUBE RUS7-2 (Valeria Kovalenko); ST. PETERSBURG YC SAILING ACADEMY (Anna Basalkina); LEVIATHAN TEAM (Vadim Yakhinson); DC TEAM (Denis Cherevatenko); X-FIT SPORTS (Vladimir Silk); NAVIGATOR NEXT (Irina Sorokina); REGION 23 TEAM (Evgeny Nikiforov), USC TEAM (Dmitry Sharubin); M1-CLOUD TEAM (Alexey Danilyants); PARMA LUKOMORYE (Vitaly Tarakanov); VOS TEAM (Yevgeny Anishev); FPS SOCHI-YUG SPORT (Oleg Kuzmin); KOMATEK (Yuri Kryuchenkov); SPORTTECH TEAM (Andrei Nikolaev); RUS7 TEAM (Anatoly Arnautov); CSKA TEAM (Darya Ivanova); SKOLKOVO SAILING TEAM (Andrey Davidyuk); and the ROYAL YC TEAM (Sergey Peshkov).

In the Grand Finale, it was great racing all three days right on the Sochi waterfront.  Every team had a chance to sail in a wide variety of wind and sea conditions.  Showing that her experience in winning the YC Monaco Winter Series in the J/70 class was no fluke, Valerya Kovalenko’s ARTTUBE with crew of Alexander Bozhko, Igor Lisovenko and Egor Ignatenko, simply showed their tail-feathers to the fleet for most of the regatta, winning most races and never finishing out of the top three to win by a commanding margin.

As a result of the Sochi regatta, Sergei Musikhin’s LORD OF THE SAIL- ASIA team managed to sail a solid regatta to claim the ultimate sailing prize in Russia- to be crowned Russia’s Best Sailing Team- winning the Russian J/70 National Sailing League for 2017!  Here is how it all took place off Sochi.

Day One- Kovalenko’s ARTTUBE Leads
On Friday, twelve races took place, each team had 4 starts.

It was an excellent beginning for ARTTUBE RUS7-2 and their skipper Valeriya Kovalenko- one of Russia’s top women sailors and skippers.  Her team produced two 1sts and two 2nds for a total of 6 pts to easily lead the regatta.  Next came PIROGOVO’s Morozov and NAVIGATOR SAILING TEAM’s Rytov tied on 8 point each.  Rounding out the top five were LORD OF SAIL- ASIA’s Musikhin sitting on 10 pts in fourth.  Then, 5th place had a three-way tie at 12 pts each between KONAKOVO RIVER CLUB’s Kagansky, ST PETERSBURG YC ACADEMY SAILING TEAM’s Basalkina, and LORD OF THE SAIL- EUROPE’s Ermolenko.

Day Two- ARTTUBE Maintains Furious Pace!
The penultimate day of racing had some seriously crazy, unpredictable weather patterns.  The weather on Saturday was a struggle for all teams: in the morning, Sochi was covered by a torrential rainstorm; then the sun came out and a stable wind of 12-14 knots appeared for awhile; and then at the end of the day, arrived a big frontal system with winds of 25+ kts and sheets of rain again!  Yes, the weather Godz must be crazy!

Despite the difficult weather, the Race Committee and the race judges managed to ensure a good pace of the competition; fourteen races were held, for a total of twenty-six races run by the close of Saturday.

Continuing to demonstrate their outstanding performance was Kovalenko’s ARTTUBE RUS7-2, adding three 1sts and a 5th to their dominant scorecard for a total of 14 pts in eight races!  Seven points back was Musikhin’s LORD OF THE SAIL- ASIA, having clawed there way back onto the leaderboard after a disappointing start on the first day. Lying in third new was Morozov's PIROGOVO.

On Saturday evening, the Russian J/70 sailing teams celebrated a tradition for Sochi, launching 350 balloons into the sky in honor of the 350th anniversary of Russian shipbuilding and the 10th anniversary of the United Shipbuilding Corporation. The volunteers of the “World Festival of Youth” and “Students 2017” launched the balloons. As part of the celebration, a race was held for guests and partners of the League, as well as volunteers of the World Festival of Youth and Students-2017.

Day Three- ARTTUBE wins finale!
On the final day for the Grand Finale of the summer-long series, six more races were completed to determine the winner of the Sochi Regatta, but also the overall champion for the Russian J/70 National Sailing League.  After thirty-two races, the winner of the "big finale" of the season was Kovalenko’s ARTTUBE team, sporting a scorecard that had only one race outside the top three, including six 1sts in ten races!

Second place went to yet another woman skipper- Anna Basalkina from the ST PETERSBURG ACADEMY SAILING TEAM!  There is no question that would a “first ever” scenario in the history of Russian sailing that two women skippers swept the top two spots in a major national sailing championship!

Finally, taking the bronze on the podium was Igor Rytov’s NAVIGATOR Sailing Team.

The Grand Finale in Sochi also produced the Russian J/70 National Sailing League Champions- that crowned was award to LORD OF THE SAIL- ASIA, with skipper Sergei Musikhin and crew of Pavel Trofimchuk, Denis Tyurikov and Mikhail Korznikov.  Their fourth place in the Grand Finale earned them their hard-won championship title.

The overall series silver was awarded to NAVIGATOR Sailing Team and rounding out the podium with the bronze was LORD OF THE SAIL- EUROPE’s Vyacheslav Ermolenko and crew.

The success of the 2017 Russian J/70 National Sailing League could have happened without the generous support of its partners and sponsors.  “Thank You” to the following:

• General partner- JSC "United Shipbuilding"
• Official partners- GAZPROM and NORD STREAM AG
• Financial partner- ALFA Private
• Fitness partner- X-FIT fitness clubs across the federation
• Sochi Regatta partner- SOCHI GRAND MARINA by Burevestnik group
• Technological Partner- INTERPROCOM provided tracking
• Radio communication partner- COMPASS-R.
• Sport media partner- TV channel “MATCH!”
• Radio partner- radio station MAXIMUM.
• General media partners- the newspaper SOVETSKY SPORT, MAXIM magazine, FORBES.LIFE, Sport FM, YACHTING magazine.

Russian J/70 Sailing League video highlights:
Day 3 Highlights     Day 2 Highlights    Day 1 Highlights
Grand Finale on Russian Sports TV News- MATCH:
Day 3    Day 2    Day 1
For more Russian J/70 Sailing League informationAdd to Flipboard Magazine.


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